The University of Kentucky joined a growing list of American campuses targeted by false “active shooter” calls on Tuesday, when it was confirmed that a report of gunfire near William T. Young Library was a hoax.
UK officials said police from the campus and Lexington responded within two minutes of the 12:12 p.m. call, quickly using the campus camera system to confirm there was no threat. Because the hoax was identified almost immediately, no campuswide alert was issued.
In a statement, the university acknowledged the wave of false reports hitting schools nationwide and said it is “monitoring the situation closely” while maintaining campus safety as its top priority.
Tuesday’s incident is part of what law enforcement officials are now calling a nationwide swatting trend — a surge of false emergency calls designed to incite chaos, drain resources and terrify communities — just as students return for the fall semester.
Between Aug. 21-25, campuses in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Colorado, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Arkansas experienced similar scares: lockdowns at libraries and law schools, SWAT teams clearing classrooms and frantic parents trying to reach their children. All of those reports — except an initial Villanova case still under review — proved false.
A pattern emerges
Authorities have stopped short of calling the incidents a single, coordinated campaign, but they do see a disturbing pattern. Most calls followed the same template: a rifle-wielding suspect in or near a central campus building, sometimes with fake gunfire audio to heighten urgency. The timing was strategic — afternoons and early evenings during the first week of classes, when campuses are busiest.
At the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, the volume was extreme: More than 300 calls were made across seven buildings in one day, overwhelming police lines in what experts likened to a telephone denial-of-service attack.
Colorado University-Boulder police labeled their incident the “latest target in a string of hoaxes,” publicly tying it to the broader national trend.
The stakes
The human toll is real. False alerts trigger lockdowns that leave students crouched under desks and staff barricading office doors. Armed responders enter buildings ready for a gunfight that doesn’t exist — raising the risk of tragic mistakes.
Every false alarm chips away at public trust, creating alert fatigue that could delay response to a genuine threat.
“This is about more than wasted resources,” one campus security official said. “It’s about conditioning people to doubt lifesaving warnings.”
FBI tracking a growing threat
The FBI has taken notice.
“We are aware of recent swatting incidents involving a number of colleges and universities and are working with our law enforcement partners,” the bureau said in a statement.
Central to its response is the Virtual Command Center, a secure platform for real-time threat sharing, and the National Common Operational Picture, a nationwide database launched in 2023 to track swatting attacks.
“Swatting puts innocent people at risk, drains law enforcement resources, and we are seeing an increase nationwide,” the FBI added.
While no one has claimed responsibility, the methods — spoofed VoIP lines, staged audio and coordinated timing — suggest more than one-off pranks. Some experts believe organized swatting crews, possibly including foreign actors, are testing U.S. response systems.
What’s next?
Investigators are now examining 911 recordings, call-routing data and specific phrasing to determine if these hoaxes share a common source. State fusion centers are cross-referencing reports, and the FBI is urging every law enforcement agency to submit data to the NCOP-VCC to help detect patterns quickly.
For universities, the challenge is balancing rapid response with the need to avoid becoming unwitting amplifiers of fear.
The University of Kentucky’s experience shows how quickly campuses can be pulled into a national wave of manufactured crises. Officials may not yet call it “coordinated,” but they agree the pattern is escalating — a clear test of America’s emergency response systems, proving that in 2025, terror doesn’t always require a weapon.
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