Rhea Jha, KUSA-TV 9NEWS
Aug 26, 2025
911 audio shows multiple callers reported a shooter at the library, suggesting the swatting hoax was coordinated and not random.
BOULDER, Colo. — Students and staff at the University of Colorado Boulder received four emergency text alerts in less than an hour on Monday, warning of a gunman inside Norlin Library. But by the fourth message, authorities were already telling the campus it could be a potential swatting hoax.
Around 5 p.m., police swarmed the campus, ordering a shelter-in-place and sweeping buildings. By 8:18 p.m., Norlin Library and Sewall Hall had been cleared, and police confirmed the report was a swatting hoax.
Swatting is the practice of making false emergency calls to provoke a police response and has become an increasingly frequent and sophisticated phenomenon. Security experts say the risks go far beyond wasted resources.
“When that mass notification goes out, you know, there is a real risk for injury and even death to those students when they’re evacuating,” said Shawn Wurtsmith, a Colorado-based security consultant. “Another risk is we’re taking valuable resources away from incidents that could be life-threatening…and then the ongoing trauma and emotional distress that’s caused by something like this. Swatting is going to have a lasting impact.”
Wurtsmith, who has more than 20 years of experience securing critical facilities from military bases to hospitals in Colorado, said swatting calls have become harder than ever to trace.
“Swatting calls today are very sophisticated,” he explained. “Using VPNs, voice-over-IP networks. We’re finding more and more that swatting calls are actually coming from overseas.”
According to 911 dispatch audio obtained by 9NEWS after the incident, there were multiple callers who claimed there was an active shooter inside the library. The fact that more than one person reported the same false threat suggests the hoax was not random but coordinated and organized, Wurtsmith said.
He added that perpetrators often rely on “doxing or social engineering, really getting information that makes it very believable when somebody calls. They understand who they’re calling, they understand the facility or the area that they’re calling about, and it just makes it very credible when that call comes in.”
The false alarm at CU prompted a large-scale response from campus police, Boulder Police, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, and Boulder Fire-Rescue. The costs are significant.
“The average cost associated with a swatting response is $10,000 and it can range up to $25,000. Not only is it a huge drain on law enforcement resources, but it’s also a financial drain as well,” Wurtsmith said.
Officials have also noted the cumulative toll. In recent years, dozens of schools across Colorado have been targeted in coordinated swatting campaigns, leading to repeated lockdowns and mass notifications.
Wurtsmith warned that over time, the public risks becoming desensitized.
“When it ends up being another false alarm, do you continue to react and respond like you should? I think you become a little bit desensitized to those alerts. And I think that’s a real risk, because someday it may be real.”
Separate shelter-in-place orders were issued Monday afternoon for a portion of the CU Boulder campus and a portion of a south Boulder neighborhood.
Just this past February, students at CU Boulder were ordered to shelter in place after reports of an armed man on campus — a threat that turned out to be real and ended with the suspect’s arrest.
Colorado criminalized swatting in 2019, making it a felony to falsely report explosives, weapons, or other threats. In 2023, lawmakers expanded the law to cover false reports of mass shootings or active shooter scenarios, adding tougher penalties.
Wurtsmith said the laws are a deterrent “if people know about it. But I think there probably needs to be a little bit more public education and awareness that the bill even exists.”
For institutions like CU, the emphasis now is on maintaining strong protocols and public trust.
“Every time law enforcement responds to something like this, that builds public trust,” Wurtsmith said. “They take this stuff seriously. They’re not dismissing it. That’s important.”
Still, he acknowledged the limits of prevention.
“You can’t prevent somebody overseas from doing a swatting call. What you can do is continue to have good policies in place, good protocols in place, and training for the students to know how to deal with something like this.”
As campuses nationwide brace for more incidents, experts warn that the threat of swatting is not in the hoax itself, but in the very real consequences it creates.