Over the past month, at least 26 fraudulent calls to local emergency services have sent police speeding to a community synagogue after a false report of a bomb threat or an active shooter, an act known as “swatting” that officials say is meant to produce fear and chaos while hoping that police reactions lead to someone being harmed or killed, the New York Times reports.
Focused on 12 states and starting after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh was sentence to death, the calls are believed to be from a single source or an associated group of individuals. Callers have claimed bombs were put under pews at houses of worship in New York, California and North Carolina, among other places. At synagogues California and North Carolina, officers entered the building while the congregations were participating in worship or other activities and aggressively evacuated the buildings, causing fear and panic among the congregants.
“What this specific campaign does,” Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said, “is meld the technologies that we know amplify antisemitism and enables people to weaponize them through swatting tactics that not only troll the Jewish community, but try to create fear and anxiety without having to leave the comfort of their homes.”