Thanks to advance planning by the Powell Police Department and Park County School District 1, officials were able to quickly debunk a hoax that falsely claimed there had been a shooting at Powell Middle School today (Monday).

Schools in Powell, Cody and other parts of Wyoming were targeted by the hoax phone calls this morning (Monday) — apparently the same hoax that swept across Montana, Idaho and Utah in recent weeks.

At 9:38 a.m., a male called the Powell Police Department and falsely reported that shots had been fired at Powell Middle School; the caller claimed to be inside the school, Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt said.

All reports are taken seriously, but after seeing this hoax pass through other states, the police department and school district had already made plans on a response if the scam came here. Thanks to the protocols they put in place, Park County School District 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis said officials were able to confirm the call was a hoax within 90 seconds. Police officers responded to and entered the middle school, “but that’s about as far as it got,” Eckerdt said.

“That relationship with the school and those ahead-of-time conversations paid off,” he added.

The Powell department also passed along word to the Cody Police Department, which received a similar hoax call just minutes later, at 9:43 a.m. In that case, the caller claimed shots had been fired at both Cody High School and Cody Middle School, with multiple people possibly injured. Cody police officers and Park County Sheriff’s deputies responded “rapidly,” and “quickly determined the reports were unfounded,” police said. However, officers proceeded to perform walkthroughs and security checks at all Park County schools as a precaution.

Both the Powell and Cody school districts were able to remain in normal operations, though they notified students’ families of the hoax.

“Protocols are in place to verify threats to our schools and to ensure safety for all involved,” PCSD 1 Assistant Superintendent Jason Sleep said in a recorded message to parents. “All of our schools are aware of the false report and staff is alert to ensure the safety of all our students.”

Multiple law enforcement agencies around Wyoming — including in Casper — received similar calls at around the same time this morning (Monday). They come on the heels of an actual shooting at a private Christian school elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, last week, in which a 28-year-old killed three children and three staff members.

These types of hoaxes “can be a drain on resources — and it can be a challenge to the safety of all involved when you’re having the response and fear within the community, and it can have a much bigger impact,” Eckerdt said.

“It will be investigated,” he added. “It’s definitely something that is taken very seriously.”

The fact that the caller or callers are targeting multiple states “obviously draws federal attention,” Eckerdt said, and the federal government will bring its resources “to bear.” Powell police are forwarding the information from their call to both the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he said. Cody police said they would be doing the same.

“We cannot allow the people that make these types of hoax calls put the students, staff and police officers at risk or undermine the learning environment and emotional well-being of our students,” Cody Police Chief Chuck Baker said in a statement.

Cody police described the hoax as an apparent instance of swatting, which involves “making a prank call to emergency services, such as a bomb threat or an active shooter, in an attempt to dispatch … a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.”

Cody police said swatting is becoming increasingly common across the country, though it isn’t new.

For instance, back in February 2018, a scammer called Powell police and made a bogus report of a shooting at the Super 8 Hotel. When officers arrived, the hotel phone rang and the caller told the responding officers that he just wanted to test their response time. The case was never solved.

Whether today's (Monday’s) calls can be traced back to the source will likely depend on how the hoax was carried out, Eckerdt said, as some phone scams are tougher to solve than others.

The call came from what appeared to be an out-of-area phone number, he said, but scammers can use so-called spoofing technology to disguise where they’re calling from. Just last week, a Powell resident received a call that appeared to come from the police department — 307-754-2212 — and the caller identified himself as “Lt. Matt.”

However, the citizen knew Lt. Matt McCaslin and the caller’s foreign accent was a dead giveaway for the scam, police said.

Citizens are encouraged to contact law enforcement if they ever are suspicious about the legitimacy of a call.

(Braden Schiller contributed reporting.)