In aftermath of harrowing hoax, law enforcement seeks answers

Dec. 3—Glynn County police responded Wednesday morning to an emergency at Brunswick High with the understanding that several young people had already been shot by a gunman on a rampage inside the campus.

Long after the tense crises proved unfounded, throngs of anxious parents wearing pained expressions stood outside the campus — unwilling to walk away without their children.

School Police Chief Rod Ellis has had scarcely a quiet moment since, relaying information to the various law enforcement agencies now seeking to unravel what happened.

For law enforcement agencies and those who were pulled into the potentially horrific incident, the term "hoax" is too benign a description for the rash of false reports Wednesday of active shooters at public schools throughout the region, state and nation.

"It's not terrorism per se, but these people definitely terrified a lot of people with what they did," Ellis told The News on Friday. "In the end, it was not a violent act. But it stirred a lot of terror in a lot of people. Thank God it wasn't real, but the thing is it created so much terror."

Ellis said the FBI is heading the overall investigation into the hoax. In addition to Brunswick High and Camden County High, similar false 911 calls reported active shooters at schools in Chatham, Burke, Early, Coffee, Muscogee, Toombs, Lowndes, Ware and Wayne counties. Other fake reports came in across the state and nationally for a total of more than 400, according to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

State Reps. Buddy DeLoach, R-Townsend, and Steven Sainz, R-St. Mary's, joined five of their colleagues Friday in calling for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to take a greater role in the investigation.

"We strongly condemn the threats of violence against any student and teacher in Georgia, and the recent threats made against South Georgia Schools is unacceptable and must be investigated," their statement said. "As such, we have requested that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation initiate a task force to find the guilty parties involved."

A GBI spokeswoman said the state agency "was on standby with investigative teams ready to assist" during Wednesday's incidents. Through the Georga Information Sharing and Analysis Center, state agents continue to work with federal agencies in the aftermath, the spokeswoman said.

DeLoach, whose District 167 includes portions of Glynn County, said those responsible for Wednesday's incident must be brought to justice. He added the GBI's considerable resources should be brought to bear against the perpetrators of the hoaxes in Georgia.

"It's my understanding at this point the FBI is taking the lead, and I'm fine with that," DeLoach said. "We just want to make clear that we want to stop this from happening again. That is why we want the GBI to use whatever resources are available to aid in the investigation and to find the people responsible. We want to make sure they're punished and this does not happen again. It's not only the cost and the danger, but also the emotional trauma inflicted on the parents, the students, the teachers and all involved."

It started at Brunswick High with a call to an administrative nonemergency line at the Glynn-Brunswick 911 Center at 8:55 a.m. Wednesday. The caller claimed to be a teacher in a second floor room at the school. As police responded to the scene, dispatchers relayed a description of a man the caller claimed to have already shot seven students, according to a Glynn County police summary report.

"The shooter was described as a white male wearing blue pants and currently on the second floor near room 219," county police reported. "Shortly after the initial call, dispatch advised that seven students had been shot."

School police were the first on scene, assisted by county and city police, the sheriff's office, state Department of Natural Resources officers, local FBI agents and federal Homeland Security agents.

Authorities quickly determined there was no gun or gunman on campus.

Despite the details provided concerning Brunswick High, it is likely the hoax call did not originate locally, Ellis said. Some or all of the hundreds of calls across the county might well have been orchestrated by a single source, Ellis said.

County school police investigators continue to work with local FBI agents to piece together the Brunswick High hoax, he said.

"Again, the FBI's leading it," Ellis said. "But there's a lot of commonalities to the ones all around the country. There's nothing to indicate the genesis of this is going to be local. That's about all I can say about it for now. The big question is who is doing it, why are they doing it and what can we do to stop it?"