According to this NPR story, False calls about active school shooters are rising. They follow an odd pattern : NPR, There seems to be a pattern to some of the hoax school shooting calls, showing that they are organized and come from Africa.
Do you really think this is a thing and, if so, to what purpose?
We’ve had a few here in Corpus Christi this year, but none of them have been due to calls from Africa. They’ve been due to large fistfights breaking out on campus and someone on the periphery mistakenly believing that they saw a gun.
I can think of at least a dozen reasons people do this. None of them good.
What rubs me raw is in the OP cite they refer to this as “pranks” and “practical jokes”. These are no more jokes than bomb threats are. These are acts of terrorism. I’m glad Tyler Barriss got 20 years. Asshole!
He got off light, IMO.
Same here. But in our current p*ssy juice Criminal justice system defendants such as this get next to nothing so I will take 20 years over next to nothing.
Anti-Government types try to disrupt Emergency Services, and spread fear.
Profession Bank Robbers used to do this stuff, 1930s-50s, to distract cops.
I’m weirded out by this passage here
Conley said the possibility that the calls came from a foreign individual or entity may be bolstered by details that the caller provided that are atypical of school shootings in the U.S. For example, the particular model of gun the caller referenced as the weapon was often different from what is commonly used in school shootings. “America has a very particular relationship with guns,” she said. “The the cultural object of the mass shooting in the United States is the AR-15.”
Are they saying the AR-15 is the most common weapon of school shooters? Because it isn’t, if you actually look up the weapons used in major school shootings it’s almost always pistols and shotguns. And AR-15s are even the most common gun in other mass shootings, people only think that because most of the “high death” shootings tend to use AR-15s.
I like how someone calling our crimj system “weak” cannot bear to type that “u”. 
You might try to use less sexist terms in the future.
It’s not sexist at all.
We get these judges that run on a “law and order” platform then hand down wimpy sentences to people that need the hammer dropped on them.
Moderating:
Please don’t use slurs against women to insult random organizations. This is really hostile to women, including those who might want to post here.
And yes, in the opinion of this moderator, it is certainly sexist.
This moderator agrees it is sexist.
I would suspect that the calls aren’t actually coming from Africa, but are from someone (or someones) using a VPN.
They do seem organized, but that doesn’t really tell if it’s a large multinational terrorist organization, or a few dumb teenagers thinking they are being cool.
I could believe it coming to light that a Russia, Iran, or other ‘rogue state’ (or an affiliated agent) might be behind such a thing to create some low level mischief and social anxiety.
Possible, but I also know that we don’t need to look beyond our shores to find people who want to harm our country.
It’s not the best written article, but I’m taking “cultural object” to mean “gun most associated with mass shooting in the average American’s mind”. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. A kid for the US calling in a threat to his school would probably say AR-15 vs a kid from another country mentioning something like an AK-47.
Enemies of the US could be trying to find out what kind of threat gets the most attention, wastes the most resources, and results in the most mistakes.
We don’t know why another country is suspected here, I don’t think it’s that difficult to have calls routed through other countries. Unless that idea has been researched further I’d suspect that it was actually domestic in nature. It’s something domestic terrorists can take more immediate advantage of.
I know why Americans would route their calls through African VPNs: Because they don’t want them traced back to them, because they’d get in trouble if they were caught. But why would a Russian or North Korean, already beyond the reach of American law enforcement, care? And if they did use a VPN, wouldn’t they try to use an American one, to make the threats appear domestic and thus credible?
Russian or NorK disturbance-provokers want to be able to keep up for domestic consumption the “oh, WE are not doing anything, WE are the victims” bullshyte. And they probably have heaps of “African” or “SE Asian” IP addresses already tied up and compromised as part of regular business so why not use them.
And, also, because when something makes big news and bothers to identify the firearm, it is the AR15-and-clones-and-spinoffs family that are more often mentioned by type, as opposed to “an automatic pistol” or “a revolver” or “a hunting shotgun”. Those reports n turn would be read by the would-be creator of mischief and they’d take notes that apparently this is what scares people most.
Of course, to professionals it is a signal that something is off, because in real-world situations people calling in a report of an attack are not going to pause to give you detailed make and model information, they are going to say “OMG he’s got two guns!! and one is one of those army rifle assault whadyacallit thingies!”
Well, we do know that these calls turned out to be fake, but I don’t know that we could use that to change how a police department reacts to such a call.
Oh absolutely, but in investigation after response it can be a hint about where it came from,