DPS receives false report of shooting at Maxwell School, 2nd this week

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Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety announced it received a false report of an active shooter at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs on Friday afternoon.

According to a 4:40 p.m. tweet, DPS officers responded to the report, but confirmed it to be false. DPS updated the university community on Friday via the Orange Safe app — a notification system DPS uses to provide on-campus safety updates — and a campus-wide email.

DPS wrote in the tweet that it’s launching an investigation to determine who submitted the false report.

DPS also received a false report of an on-campus shooting near College Place on Sunday night, making Friday’s report the university’s second falsely-reported shooting this week. DPS also updated the campus community via Twitter on Sunday night, nearly an hour after receiving the report.

Around 18 hours later SU put out a campus-wide email identifying the report as an incident of ‘swatting,’ the act of reporting a false emergency to elicit a response from law enforcement.

The false reports of shootings at SU come amid an increase both across New York state and nationally in swatting. Earlier this week, just a day after SU’s case, incidents of swatting occurred at both Harvard University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a statewide “heightened awareness” in response to the rise in swatting cases on March 31. Several state legislators recently proposed resolutions to criminalize making any threat of mass violence and to raise the penalty for a person who engages in swatting.

At a Friday press conference in Syracuse, State Senator John Mannion (D-50) announced legislation to elevate falsely reporting a shooting or otherwise violent incident on school grounds to a Class D felony.

As of Friday evening, SU has not released any policies or protocols for handling potential future incidents of swatting.

This post will be updated with additional reporting.