"I have an AR-15 and pipe bombs with me. I'm going to shoot every kid I see in the school. I'm walking in now."
That threat was made against at least 17 schools throughout Colorado on Feb. 22. The 911 calls — featuring the sound of rapid gunfire — resulted in school closures, heavy law enforcement responses and thousands of panicked families.
But no shootings occurred.
Officials called the incident a coordinated false report, commonly referred to as "swatting."
If passed by the state legislature, Senate Bill 249 would make it a felony offense to knowingly falsely report a mass shooting in Colorado.
"We have an epidemic of swatting in this state," said bill sponsor Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village. "When kids are afraid, they can't learn. ... Students are telling us they want this. We have teachers who are afraid, parents who are afraid."
There have been more than 60 major swatting incidents in Colorado since 2020, with at least 41 occurring this year, said Kevin Klein, director of the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Of the 60 threats, 51 targeted schools.
Colorado lawmakers criminalized swatting in 2018 with Senate Bill 18-068, intending to address false reports of bomb threats. That bill made it a class 1 misdemeanor to falsely report an emergency. If the response to the report results in a serious injury or death, it becomes a class 4 and class 3 felony, respectively.
The newly-proposed bill would increase the baseline offense to a class 6 felony for false reports of mass shootings or active shooters, specifically.
On Sept. 19, Denver's East High School fell victim to a hoax shooting report, less than two weeks after an East student was shot blocks from the school.
Anna Craig said she and 2,000 other students were evacuated by armed police officers and corralled into the football field. Craig said her classmates cried out of fear, not knowing the threat was fake, with some even passing out from the stress and blistering heat.
"At that moment, you don't know it's a drill. You think you are going to die," Craig said while testifying in support of the bill on Monday. "If there's any way to keep another person from having to live this, then I think we should do it."
The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill on Monday, advancing it to the full Senate for consideration.
By felonizing false shooting reports, the bill would increase resources law enforcement can dedicate to the investigations, Bridges said, particularly when the suspect is out-of-state, as is believed to be the case for the Feb. 22 school shooting reports. In Colorado, class 6 felonies are punishable by 12 to 18 months in prison and fines of $1,000 to $100,000.
The bill is backed by education and law enforcement organizations alike, including the Colorado Education Association, Association of School Boards, Rural Schools Alliance, Association of Chiefs of Police, District Attorneys' Council, Fraternal Order of Police, Municipal League and County Sheriffs of Colorado.
The only organization opposing the bill is the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.
"This bill will further criminalize minors," said Tristan Gorman of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. "This bill seems to be aimed squarely at a situation where there is no death, no injury, but fear and trauma. ... Using the criminal legal system to address fear and trauma in minors is simply counterproductive."
Proponents of the bill argued that swatting incidents cause more harm than just trauma.
There is a financial impact of sending out emergency responders and halting business at the institutions that are threatened. In 2015, Denver law enforcement spent an estimated $25,000 responding to a swatting call, Lexipol reported.
There are also safety risks, proponents said.
Police in Kansas fatally shot a man in 2017 after a swatter sent law enforcement to his address, falsely claiming the man was holding his family hostage. No one was hurt during Colorado's mass swatting incident on Feb. 22, but one police officer accidentally fired a gun inside an Estes Park elementary school during the response, according to reports.
Mostly, though, supporters of the bill said Colorado's recent swatting incidents have emotionally scarred students for life, pleading for the state to take any action possible to deter and crack down on the crime.
"This is not a victimless crime," said Dawn Reinfeld, executive director of Blue Rising Together, while testifying in support of the bill. "Our children are not okay. ... We need to hold accountable those that callously enjoy tormenting children and families with hoax mass shooting reports."
The committee unanimously voted to add the bill to the Senate consent calendar. It is expected to face its first full-chamber vote in the coming days.
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