At South
Carolina’s Blythewood High School, reports of a shooting sent law enforcement
on overdrive on Wednesday, September 5, 2022. An unknown called dialled 911 to
report shots being fired at the school triggering a massive police response
only to later realise that the call was part of a TikTok challenge.

“This
morning law enforcement responded to a call from an unknown caller that shots
had been fired on the Blythewood High School campus. The Richland County
Sheriff’s Department responded immediately. The school was placed in lockdown
while law enforcement searched the building. RCSD has determined the call was
one of three hoax calls made to South Carolina schools this morning. There is
no evidence of any gunfire or injuries at the School,” said Richland County Sheriff
Leon Lott.

While
school shootings have emerged as a major problem in the United States, recent
social media hoaxes about attacks have put law enforcement and school administrators
in a quandary. There has been a massive spike in hoax calls of the sort that
have led to sudden school closures and lockdowns.

Reports of
social media school shooting hoaxes first surfaced in a big way after the shooting
at Oxford’s Michigan High School. On November 30, 2021, a mass shooting took
place at the Oxford High School in Michigan. Four students were killed and
seven injured, including a teacher. Nine days after the shooting, a 15-year-old
boy wrote of “shooting up the school tomorrow,” on social media in a Virginia
town triggering a massive police response.

At least 150
such hoax calls were reported after the Oxford School shooting, according to a
Washington Post report. Every time there is a threat, panic sets in among
students, parents and school administrators leading to immediate lockdowns, closures,
that negatively impact school days and hence hurt the learning experience of students.

The paranoia
over school shootings has only mounted in the United States. A few months after
the Oxford School shooting, the Uvalde massacre took place in Texas, the deadliest
school shooting in United States history which led to the death of 21 people,
including 19 young students at the Robb Elementary School.

While hoax
calls have started having an impact on schools and the general administration,
experts still think it’s best to err on the side of caution. “I think we have
to take every single threat very seriously right now – it doesn’t matter how it
might seem innocuous,” according to Laurel Thomson, a board member of the
School Social Work Association of America (SSWAA). “We never know which one is
going to be the one. We never want to make a mistake,” he told the Washington
Post.  

On
Wednesday, several hoax calls reporting active shooters in schools went out in
South Carolina. The schools included: Burke High, Blythewood High School,
Beaufort High, Myrtle Beach Middle, Loris High School.