BOULDER, Colo. — The adrenaline of a fake "active shooter" call at University of Colorado Boulder is starting to settle, but the questions continue.
"Who do this?" and "What are the odds they'll get caught?"
Denver7 took these questions to Jennifer Doebler, a former FBI intelligence analyst. She's worked on "swatting" investigations before.
"[Swatting is} when a false claim or threat is called in to emergency services," Doebler explained. "Emergency response is deployed, and it causes mass chaos and panic."
That's what happened at CU Boulder on August 25 — only the third day of classes for the 2025-26 school year.
"It's a massively growing trend. So in 2018, 2019 I think there were, you know, less than 100 swatting incidents around the country. In 2023 there were, I believe, over 500 swatting incidents. Now the numbers are into the thousands," Doebler said.
The bad news? Doebler said not many of them are getting solved.
"Swatting is being carried out with various layers of technology, various layers of anonymity, sometimes using platforms that are not based in the United States," Doebler said. "And so it's very difficult for law enforcement to get information and to track and to identify, and those technological platforms and capabilities make it really, really challenging, causing the outcome piece to be less than we would like to see today."
The use of technology and artificial intelligence has made these calls more convincing.
"Many times you'll hear gunshots in the background that are fake and not real, or you'll here screaming, or you hear all sorts of noises," Doebler explained. "The perpetrators are able to create real life sounding scenarios happening when they make the call, so that emergency services believe that it's real and act accordingly."
At CU Boulder, Denver7 was told the police response was massive.
Gregory Hib, a student, was in Norlin Library when he said police rushed in with guns drawn.
"We were all chattering with each other trying to figure out what was going on. One of the officers who was stationed outside then approached us and asked if we knew what was going on. We all said, 'No.' I was confused at the time why he would ask this," Hib said. "But now I know he was gauging reactions. Because, they were responding to an active shooting call in the library and yet everyone in the library was just calm and confused."
CU Boulder police won't comment on where they stand in the investigation, only telling Denver7 it's still ongoing.
"This is not something that people are being held accountable for across the board," Doebler said. "There are not large networks being taken down."
That's because she said it's hard for investigators to track down suspects, because they're using several different layers of technology and anonymity, and sometimes, they're not even based in the United States.
"It's very difficult for law enforcement to get information and to track and to identify, and those technological platforms and capabilities make it really, really challenging, causing the outcome piece to be less than we would like to see today," she said.
Doebler isn't sure there's a solution. She said a lot of these suspects make the calls simply for notoriety, but it's critical police respond like it's the "real thing" every single time.
"There is no other answer other than that," Doebler said.
