Arcadia school hit with 3 swatting calls in one week, FBI investigates

ARCADIA, Fla. (WINK)—WINK News security analyst and retired FBI agent Richard Kolko says a series of swatting calls targeting the same location multiple days in a row is unusual and represents what professionals call "serial swatting."

This form of persistent harassment is designed to maximize psychological, financial, and physical harm. The repeated false emergency calls create a significant drain on law enforcement resources, not to mention the difficulty they create for students and families.

Retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole has a theory on the motivation behind this type of behavior.

"Well, the motivation can be quite varied. So it could be revenge. It could be I'm angry at you, School of ABC, and I'm getting back at you. It could be a sense of excitement. It could be all of the above. So there's never any one motive or something like this. So it could be for multiple reasons, to include wanting to be disruptive, wanting to scare someone in the school, someone in particular, or some people just more in general at the school," O'Toole said.

The FBI says a swatter may have a personal vendetta, a desire for intense media attention, or see this as thrill-seeking. The numbers are not specifically documented, as the actual crime can vary across jurisdictions, but right now, the estimate is about 1,000 of these swatting calls per year.

Three swatting calls in one week at a small rural school are quite unusual. Swatting can be dangerous for law enforcement and for innocent people located at the site.

Law enforcement is pulling out all the stops to identify who is doing this.