FBI investigates whether fake threat at Mercer is tied to nationwide cases
The FBI has taken over an investigation of a false threat at Mercer University, in addition to a wave of similar calls across the U.S. this month, according to the Mercer Police Department.
Federal investigators were tasked with analyzing the call, caller, phone number, motive and possible connections to recent swatting calls across the country, Mercer Police Chief Haley Beckham said.
“The FBI has been instrumental throughout the country responding to school shootings, and they were very, very helpful to us, and are going to be helpful to the community, the state of Georgia and the country for determining who is behind this,” Beckham said. “We’ve turned everything over to them.”
Two phone calls around the same time reported an “active threat” on the Macon campus Wednesday afternoon, which prompted several local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to respond, Beckham said.
Someone called the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office to report the alleged threat, and around the same time, someone called a university department to report the same thing, Beckham told The Telegraph. The calls were then transferred to Mercer Police, which led a sweep and lockdown on campus.
The police department did not determine who called, why it happened, or whether the caller, or callers, tried to hide their identity, Beckham said.
“I’m unaware of (if) there was a cloak of the number,” she said. “But in these situations, no matter if it is a real person or if it is (artificial intelligence), the response is still the same.”
Beckham noted when a caller concealed their identity using technology during a similar false report of an armed person near Perry High School on Aug. 8.
Beckham did not expect to have any updates on the Mercer case, as the police department turned over the investigation to the FBI.
“Swatting is the act of making a false emergency call to provoke a large scale police response, and that’s exactly what happened yesterday,” Beckham said.