Months before the Los Angeles school board approved a $6.2 million contract with AllHere, an AI chatbot maker that is now being investigated by the FBI, top district leaders were invited to a meeting with its CEO and a consultant, who is a close friend and associate of schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

The Jan. 18, 2023, calendar invite for the gathering at the district’s downtown headquarters, billed as “AllHere Meeting,” was shared with ����Ӱ�� by a former central office staffer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. 

The AllHere contract in question is widely believed to be connected to the high-profile raids on Carvalho’s home and district office in late February. 

����Ӱ�� has not received confirmation on whether the meeting took place or what specifically may have been discussed, but the invite suggests district administrators were consulting with AllHere principals five months before the contract was voted on.

It also calls into question public statements by Carvalho, who was placed on paid leave Feb. 27, that he . He said the education technology venture represented by his longtime friend and business associate Debra Kerr won the job based on legally mandated bidding. Kerr called the Jan. 18 meeting.

AllHere filed for bankruptcy in September 2024 and its founder and CEO, Joanna Smith-Griffin, was later arrested on charges of identity theft and defrauding investors. 

����Ӱ�� filed extensive public record requests with Los Angeles Unified School District in September 2024 for documents related to the AI chatbot contract, including all proposals, bids or submissions made by AllHere and any other companies vying for the work. The request also asked for documents detailing how the district evaluated AllHere’s qualifications and determined that the small Boston-based firm with little to no artificial intelligence experience was capable of carrying out the contract.

On Feb. 11, 17 months after those requests were filed and two weeks before the FBI raids, a senior paralegal in sent ����Ӱ�� an email asking if we still wanted the documents.

Through his attorneys and a spokesperson, Carvalho since the FBI probe exploded into public view. The Los Angeles Times reported that he denied any wrongdoing, pointed out that “no evidence has been presented by prosecutors supporting any allegation that (he) violated federal law” and pressed to return to his job.

“Mr. Carvalho remains confident that the evidence will ultimately demonstrate that he acted appropriately and in the best interests of students,” said the statement that was issued through the spokesperson and the law firm of Holland & Knight, according to the Times. “We hope the school board reinstates him promptly to his position as superintendent.”

Kate Brody, the vice president of communications for , a 2,000-member LAUSD parent and educator advocacy group, sees the moment differently. Her group has called for an audit of all the education technology contracts entered into under Carvalho, saying they lack independent research into their efficacy and now is “the time to peel this whole thing back and take a look, not just at what’s going on with AllHere, but the inappropriate amount of access that all these companies have.”

“The evidence is increasingly clear that this technology is not really for the benefit of the students,” she told ����Ӱ��. “Our big question has been for a long time — whose benefit is it for?”

Carvalho has not been accused of any wrongdoing and authorities have not provided details about the investigation. The warrants underlying the . 

In  after the Board of Education placed Carvalho on paid leave and named an acting superintendent, the district said that while it understood “the need for information, we cannot discuss the specifics of this matter pending investigation.”

Kerr could not be reached for comment and attorneys for  Smith-Griffin did not respond to requests for comment. District spokesperson, Britt Vaughan, could not be reached for comment.

Kerr and Carvalho

Federal agents also . Her ties to Carvalho go back to his days leading the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, a period of time in his prominent career that is also now reportedly under investigation. According to , grand jury subpoenas have been issued seeking records from the district’s inspector general and a fundraising foundation overseen by Carvalho while he was the Miami schools chief.

Kerr was a key player in executing the failed contract between AllHere and the nation’s second-largest school district. In addition to her being in a position to call senior staff to a meeting at district headquarters, according to the calendar invite, Kerr’s son Richard, a former AllHere account manager who began working for the company in 2022, told ����Ӱ�� in September 2024 he pitched AllHere to LAUSD school leaders.

Among ����Ӱ��’s long-unanswered public records requests were any conflict of interest disclosure forms filed by AllHere, its employees, third parties involved in the contract or LAUSD personnel.

The location listed on Kerr’s hourlong invite to discuss AllHere was the office of LAUSD’s longtime chief spokesperson Shannon Haber, who has since retired. Other invitees included senior advisor of communication Bích Ngọc Cao, senior director of engagement and partnerships Antonio Plascencia Jr.. and director of development and civic engagement Sara Mooney. 

Mooney is also the former executive director of the , the district’s separate fundraising arm includes Carvalho. Attempts to reach Haber and the other meeting invitees, which also included Vaughan, the district spokesperson, and marketing director Lourdes Valentine, were unsuccessful.

Earlier calendar entries shared with ����Ӱ�� show Carvalho had an hourlong meeting scheduled with Kerr and someone identified only as “SN” on Oct. 21, 2022, about eight months after he took the $440,000-a-year job in Los Angeles. The meeting was scheduled for 12:30 p.m. at a place “to be determined.”

In 2022, Kerr was busy consulting for and promoting AllHere in multiple Florida cities, according to . She also did consulting work for Rethink Ed, a New York-based company that provides social-emotional and wellness resources. In May 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national school shutdowns, to support students with autism and other related disabilities during remote learning. 

“We appreciate partners like Rethink Ed which assist us in empowering these very deserving students with a variety of innovative and helpful tools to successfully engage in distance learning,” Carvalho said in a statement when the Miami-Dade contract was announced.

Roughly two years later, when Carvalho was leading LAUSD, the firm

Other calendar entries shared with ����Ӱ�� show that right before the scheduled meeting with Kerr that October Friday, Carvalho had back-to-back interviews lined up with reporters from The Wall Street Journal and Politico. Later that day, he was scheduled to attend a retirement dinner for Michael Hinojosa, the former Dallas schools superintendent, at the Ravello restaurant at the Four Seasons in Buena Vista Lake, Florida, near Orlando.

Two days before Carvalho was due back in Florida for that celebration, the a $1.89 million contract to provide text-messaging support to students struggling with attendance, academics and social-emotional issues. The SMS tool was a precursor to its AI-powered chatbot. 

Carvalho told the Los Angeles Times he had getting the three-year deal in Miami although the newspaper reported that the bidding process began while he was still in charge. 

Two years later, in November 2024, the district would move with Miami-Dade schools for a period of three years after the ed tech company abandoned its contract.

����Ӱ�� filed public records requests on Sept. 13, 2024, asking for copies for all of Carvalho’s daily calendars going back to his first date of employment at LAUSD. The district has yet to produce them.  

AllHere then gone

Also invited to the Jan. 18, 2023, meeting set up by Kerr was AllHere’s Smith-Griffin, who six months after landing the L.A. schools deal was charged with defrauding investors of nearly $10 million.

Her case, which involves allegations of securities and wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, is being heard in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The Harvard graduate and former middle school math teacher  pleaded not guilty in December 2024. Conferences on her case were postponed three separate times in 2025 to allow the parties time to work on a possible disposition. The last was a 60-day adjournment on Sept. 25, 2025, and there’s been no activity in the file since then.

By the time Smith-Griffin was arrested at her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, in November 2024, the company she founded in 2016 had been forced into bankruptcy, unable to pay its debts, including a disputed $630,000 commission claimed by its largest creditor: Kerr.

Carvalho and Smith-Griffin spent considerable time together in the spring of 2024, appearing at multiple ed tech conferences touting “Ed,” their sunny chatbot that was seen as catapulting LAUSD into the K-12 AI vanguard. They said communicating with Ed would provide an unprecedented level of support, accelerating learning and strengthening well-being for students and families, many of whom were still struggling from the pandemic. 

“He’s going to talk to you in 100 different languages, he’s going to connect with you, he’s going to fall in love with you,” Carvalho raved at the April 2024 ASU+GSV conference in San Diego. “Hopefully you’ll love it, and in the process we are transforming a school system of 540,000 students into 540,000 ‘schools of one’ through absolute personalization and individualization.”

None of that materialized for the district, whose enrollment has since and which is now and

After AllHere shuttered and a former company manager-turned-whistleblower told ����Ӱ�� that students’ private data  was not properly protected in the push to launch Ed, Carvalho vowed to investigate. He promised a task force of outside experts who would dig into what went wrong with the AllHere contract and determine how the district could strengthen its bidding process to avoid future debacles.

Carvalho told the Los Angeles Times in July 2024, he expected. Some 19 months later, there’s been no further news or shared task force findings. The district’s independent inspector general’s office launched its own investigation around the same time. 

However, the office’s and reports to the Board of Education make no mention of AllHere. In 2024, the IG opened a total of 62 cases, closed 54 and identified nearly $2.5 million in waste. In 2025, it opened 38 cases and closed 43, including some from previous years, though none appear to have involved AllHere. No financial waste was identified in 2025. 

Inspector General Sue Stengel at the end of 2025 after three years. The office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Equally elusive is what happened to Ed or the underlying tech tool for which LAUSD paid AllHere $3 million out of its $6.2 million contract. Although it’s been reported that school officials said the district was not financially harmed in the contractual fallout, and it received the services and products it spent several million dollars to acquire, it’s difficult to substantiate that.

When Carvalho unveiled Ed at a major March 20, 2024, celebration attended by Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, he said the chatbot would be in 101 elementary, middle and high schools as part of a pilot program. By the fall, Ed was supposed to go districtwide. 

Much later, that reported group of Ed testers had been “to a small number of schools (that) tried it out, each with a sample of students and parents.” In July 2024 after the district “unplugged” Ed in the wake of AllHere’s demise, that it was “hard to find students, teachers or other staff who have used any part of the system since its official launch.” 

Absent human interactions with Ed, the district has been slow to produce documentation from AllHere of services rendered. Among the public records sought by ����Ӱ�� in September 2024, which LAUSD now appears ready to provide, are “purchase orders, invoices, and payments records related to any and all goods and/or services provided by AllHere.” 

Staff reporter Amanda Geduld contributed to this report

The Los Angeles Unified School District board has voted to place Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on paid administrative leave, two days after the FBI raided his San Pedro home and district headquarters and searched a residence in Florida. 

While on leave, Carvalho will continue to receive pay, with a  of $440,000. And Andres Chait, who has served as LAUSD’s chief of school operations, will step in as acting superintendent, effective immediately. The length of Carvalho’s leave, which is pending investigation, has not been disclosed. 

The board’s nearly 8-hour-long  began Thursday evening, and the closed session meeting was recessed until 12:30 Friday. The final vote, which came in at about 3:45 p.m., was unanimous.

“This is a very challenging time,” Board President Scott Schmerelson said at the board meeting following Friday’s announcement. “And I want you to know that the board believes in you, supports you, and knows that you will all continue to do your very best to support the students and families of the district.”

Carvalho hasn’t made any public comments since the FBI raids. The agency has also not released further information on the investigation, and the search warrant affidavits remain sealed. Carvalho has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

So far,  have connected the raids to the company AllHere Education, with which both LAUSD and Miami-Dade County Public Schools had entered into agreements.

Three months after Los Angeles Unified rolled out Ed, an AI chatbot developed by AllHere, the company’s founder and CEO, Joanna Smith-Griffin, left. She was later arrested and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Meanwhile, the property searched in Southwest Ranches, Florida, in Broward County, reportedly belongs to Debra Kerr, whose records show is an AllHere contractor and maintained ties with Carvalho. According to ����Ӱ��, her son, Richard Kerr, pitched the now-defunct AI company to LAUSD.   

“We must strive for stability and continuity so that every school can stay focused on teaching and learning and on building on the meaningful gains the district has made in recent years,” said Yoli Flores, the president and CEO of Families in Schools. 

“At the same time, we acknowledge that public discourse around our schools is inevitably shaped by broader political dynamics. It is essential that investigations and public actions be grounded in evidence and fairness.”

Chait has worked in the district since 1998, starting out as a teacher at Queen Anne Place Elementary School. He has since worked as an assistant principal and principal. He went on to serve as a field director, the administrator of operations for LAUSD’s Local District Northeast from 2015 to 2019, encompassing roughly 120 schools, and eventually the local district superintendent and chief of school operations. 

“Chait is a highly regarded leader and educator, and we are lucky to have him step in seamlessly to oversee our schools,” Schmerelson said in a written statement. “Over the past several years, our educators and students have made enormous strides, and we expect that progress to continue unimpeded.”

He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from UC Berkeley and a master’s in education administration from Cal State Los Angeles.

“I am humbled by the Board’s confidence in appointing me to serve as Acting Superintendent during this critical time,” Acting Superintendent Andres Chait said. “Our focus remains clear: to ensure stability, continuity, and strong leadership for our students, families, and employees.”

This was originally published on .

After a four-hour closed session on Thursday, the Los Angeles Unified School District board recessed without announcing a decision on whether Superintendent Alberto Carvalho may be placed on leave a day after the FBI raided his residence and the district’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters.

The session will continue on Friday at 12:30 p.m.

Carvalho’s employment was the single item addressed during the closed-door special board meeting. Only a few members of the community spoke during public comment, and the room remained largely empty and quiet.

Board members were not available for interviews, and Carvalho wasn’t seen.

“The District continues normal operations across all schools and offices. We are grateful to our dedicated employees, families, and students for their steady focus and commitment to our school communities,” the district board wrote in a  released shortly after Thursday’s closed session ended.

The federal investigation involves financial matters related to Carvalho himself, rather than the district, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If the board decides to place Carvalho on leave, it remains unclear who the board might appoint as interim superintendent.

Several districts have picked associate superintendents to serve as interim after placing their superintendents on leave amid active investigations.

As of 8 p.m. Thursday, Carvalho has not made any public comment. Further information on Wednesday’s raids has not been released.

“We expect LAUSD to provide full transparency and clear communication to educators, school staff, and the public,” United Teachers Los Angeles, the district teachers union, said in a statement to EdSource.

“UTLA educators and our school communities have long raised concerns about LAUSD rapidly increasing spending on education tech and outside contractors, while investment in classrooms and educators has declined.”

A critical time for the district

LAUSD’s leadership shakeup comes at a critical time, as the district navigates budget challenges, potential strikes and the impacts of federal actions.

“We feel that this moment really calls for clear, strong leadership,” said Nicolle Fefferman, a longtime LAUSD educator and cofounder of the Facebook advocacy group Parents Supporting Teachers. “And we want our elected school board members to make certain that that is what they are prioritizing.”

Fall out with AllHere

Media reports so far have connected Wednesday’s raids with the company AllHere Education, which LAUSD entered into a $6.2 million professional services contract on July 1, 2023. Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where Carvalho previously served as superintendent, had also  with the company in the fall of 2022.

Los Angeles Unified initiated the  of its chatbot Ed, which was developed by AllHere, in March 2024. It was  to serve as a “personal assistant” for students — capable of reminding them about assignments and exams, and informing them about cafeteria menus and bus schedules.

But three months later, the company’s founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin left the company. Most employees were furloughed, and Smith-Griffin was arrested in November 2024 and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

In July 2024, Carvalho announced a  to conduct a review of what went wrong with the rollout. But its progress and outcomes don’t appear to have been publicly disclosed.

The home searched by the FBI in Southwest Ranches, Florida, in Broward County, is reportedly the residence of Debra Kerr, who is listed as an AllHere contractor in records related to the company’s bankruptcy case and who has ties with Carvalho from his time as superintendent in Florida. Her son, Richard Kerr, is a former employee of the now-defunct AI company who told ����Ӱ�� in 2024 that he pitched LAUSD on AllHere.

Parents Supporting Teachers is calling for the district to place Carvalho on administrative leave.

“It’s always been this lingering worry and this example of a theme of the lack of transparency and accountability that we recognize in the district,” Fefferman said.

A storied past

In January 2025, the same parent group called for Carvalho’s removal following a “chaotic and dangerous scramble for families and staff” in the wake of the Palisades Fire.

Carvalho’s contract was  in October, maintaining a salary of $440,000.

After serving as superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools for 14 years, Carvalho took over as LAUSD’s leader in 2022. His start at the district began as students returned to physical classrooms from virtual learning due to Covid-19. As a result of the pandemic, he has focused on reducing chronic absenteeism and curbing pandemic learning losses.

But despite LAUSD’s  in standardized test scores and efforts to improve student attendance, his time as the district’s leader has been riddled with controversies — from alleged  of arts funding to a  of cyberattacks and data breaches.

More recently, he has also received praise and backlash for  the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And last month, the district was  for allegedly discriminating against white students, which the U.S. Department of Justice recently sought to join.

“It is our hope that the investigation resolves quickly so that the school district can focus on its core mission of educating our children. While we understand the importance of full cooperation with any investigation, we also cannot overlook or undermine the work that Superintendent Carvalho has led to support our students, educators, and the district as a whole,” said Evelyn Aleman, the organizer of the parent group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz.

“Education is the foundation that builds stability and lifts families out of poverty— we must stay focused on that mission and our students’ success.”

The FBI raided the office and home of Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on Wednesday morning, a move that shocked the Los Angeles and state education communities.

U.S. Justice Department officials said judicially approved search warrants were executed at the district headquarters in downtown Los Angeles and Carvalho’s San Pedro residence, according to published reports. A residence in Southwest Ranches, Florida, was also searched.

Federal officials said nothing Wednesday about a possible investigation. Carvalho was the superintendent of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida for 14 years before taking the job in Los Angeles in 2022.

Carvalho has not made any public statements as of 6 p.m. Wednesday.

In a , Los Angeles Unified officials said, “We have been informed of law enforcement activity at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters and at the home of the Superintendent. The District is cooperating with the investigation and we do not have further information at this time.”

A source familiar with the school district, who spoke to EdSource on the condition of anonymity, said the raids involved a failed artificial intelligence company, AllHere, that the district contracted with for a chatbot called Ed meant to aid students.

 have also reported that the raids and possible investigation centered on the district’s relationship with AllHere.

LAUSD entered into a $6.2 million professional services contract with AllHere to begin on July 1, 2023, for an initial two-year term. The contract had three one-year renewal options, according to district documents. District investigators began a probe a year later after learning the chatbot put students’ personal information at risk, ����Ӱ�� reported at the time.

The company has also contracted with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, but Carvalho has denied involvement in that contract, the Los Angeles Times reported.

LAUSD began its rollout of Ed, the chatbot, in March 2024, with initial implementation set to begin with  that the district had identified as being its lowest-performing. District board members, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass were in attendance at the inauguration of Ed, along with partners from various universities and businesses.

Three months later, Joanna Smith-Griffin, AllHere’s founder and CEO, left the company, and most employees were furloughed. In Nov. 2024, Smith-Griffin was  in North Carolina and  in New York with securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Her case remains open.

Carvalho was hailed as a rising leader ushering in a new era for Los Angeles Unified when he took over the district. He was reappointed last year and is paid more than $440,000 in salary, with his contract set to expire in 2030.

Carvalho “is the leading urban superintendent in the nation,” Dean Pedro A. Noguera of USC’s Rossier School of Education said on Wednesday. “He is a proven leader. If Carvalho’s career is over, “the timing for the district is terrible” as it goes through layoffs and a fiscal crisis, Noguera said.

Los Angeles Unified and Carvalho have been repeatedly in the crosshairs of the federal administration during Trump’s second term.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently sought to join  filed by the 1776 Project Foundation, which sued the district in January, claiming discrimination against its white students.

 singles out LAUSD’s Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, or other Non-Anglo program, which was established to curtail the effects of school segregation.

“Students attending non-PHBAO schools are denied and directly blocked from these benefits because of the racial composition of their school attendance zone, which detrimentally impacts the quality of the educational experience and directly damages these students,” the lawsuit alleges.

Carvalho has also maintained outspoken support of immigrant students and families, including those who are undocumented. He has  that he migrated from Portugal to the United States as an undocumented teenager. LAUSD passed a resolution in the 2016-17 school year declaring itself a sanctuary district, and the board reaffirmed that status in a resolution passed late 2024.

EdSource reporter Emma Gallegos and data journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this report.

A 6-year-old boy from Virginia brought his mom’s pistol to school and shot his teacher in the chest, leaving the educator with life-threatening injuries and making him among the youngest school shooters in U.S. history.

The Newport News police chief has made clear the shooting was no accident, but law enforcement must still answer a tough question: Should the boy, whose young brain is still developing, face criminal charges? How about his mother, who purchased the handgun legally? A school-based liability question emerged late last week when the district superintendent told parents at least one administrator was made aware but none was found when the boy’s backpack was searched. Two hours later, he took aim at his teacher. 

Rare but not unprecedented: Intentional shootings carried out by young children are so rare that data about them is hard to come by. Hat tip to Sarah Burd-Sharps, the senior director of research at Everytown for Gun Safety, who pointed me to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System for some (imperfect) answers.

In 2021, 29 homicides were carried out by children 9 years old or younger, according to the federal database, compared with 2,490 homicides by those 10 to 19 years old. Weapons used in the attacks aren’t specified in the database, but in 2020, according to the Department of Justice. Another caveat: The FBI database is incomplete, with just 63% of local law enforcement agencies submitting info. 

In 2022, children carried out at least that resulted in 133 deaths and 180 injuries, according to Everytown. Of the roughly 2,000 unintentional shootings identified between 2015 and 2020, 29% were carried out by children 5 and younger and 37% were carried out by teens 14 to 17. Children in those same age groups were also the most common victims — as Everytown said in a : Shootings by children are most often also shootings of children.

“This 6-year-old — who is far too young to fully grasp the power and consequences of his actions, and whose life will also forever be impacted — should never have been able to access a firearm,” Burd-Sharps told me. “There are limitations on data about child perpetrators, because at the end of the day, the responsibility to prevent tragedies like this one from happening lies with adults.”

The 25-year-old — who escorted her students out of the classroom after she was shot — is reportedly in stable condition. The boy is under court-ordered temporary detention and being treated at a medical facility, but will have to to determine next steps.

Learning from the past: Of all school shootings since 1970, just 16 were carried out by children younger than 10 and most were unintentional, according to David Riedman, founder of the . Among them is a shooting in 2000, where in a Michigan classroom following a playground dispute. The student never faced charges due to his age, but his uncle pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for leaving his gun in a location easily accessible by the child. 

“A 6-year-old cannot go to the store and buy a gun,” Riedman told me. “So if a 6-year-old shoots somebody at a school, it’s because whoever owned the gun failed to be a responsible gun owner.”

What’s next? Juvenile justice experts in Virginia say it’s will be held criminally responsible, but his parents may be at greater legal jeopardy. Police said they are investigating if and how the mother stored the 9mm Taurus and how her son got hold of it. 

Among accountability avenues is the commonwealth’s , which prohibits people from “recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a manner that endangers children. Child access prevention or safe storage laws and Washington, D.C.

An effective prevention strategy: Rules designed to limit youth access to firearms, including Virginia’s law, are , according to an in-depth analysis released this week — with great timing — by the nonprofit RAND Corp. 

“Gun violence is a complex issue that is going to take a public health approach” to overcome, Kelsey Gastineau, a Tennessee-based pediatrician and public health researcher focused on youth firearm injuries, told ����Ӱ��. “But at the end of the day, one thing that we can do moving forward — right now — is making sure that if there are firearms in the home, that they are locked and unloaded separate from ammunition.”

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Ever since the mass school shooting in May at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school, families nationwide have been on high alert about the very real concern of such attacks decimating communities. But as South Carolina parents converged on their children’s schools and educators released students early, police statewide reached the same conclusion: This time, there was no real threat.

Instead, officials said the calls appeared to be part of a nationwide “swatting” hoax that’s played out at hundreds of K-12 schools in more than a dozen states since classes resumed this fall. Weeks earlier, dozens of schools in Minnesota, Virginia and Ohio became targets. Now, as the police connect the dots and report commonalities, experts with years of experience chasing down swatting perpetrators believe that many — if not most — of the recent incidents targeting U.S. schools are connected. After all, similar swatting sprees have been coordinated in shady internet outposts for years. 

“If they’re hitting 12 or 15 schools in a particular jurisdiction or a particular state all at once, that is absolutely a coordinated attack,” said James Turgal, a former executive assistant director for the FBI Information and Technology Branch. Turgal is a 21-year veteran of the FBI, which is actively investigating the latest swatting attacks on schools. 

Given its size, he suspects the most recent surge at schools is likely being coordinated by a group of people including foreign actors and swat-for-hire cybercriminals who carry out hoax emergency calls for money. While he does not necessarily believe it’s a government-sponsored attempt to sow chaos on American soil, Turgal thinks U.S. teens may still be pulling the strings with low-level foreign actors.

“Swatting is not something a nation state is going to get involved in,” said Turgal, now the vice president of cyber risk and strategy at Optiv Security. “These are smaller organizations that are trying to sell their services, not what I would call really sophisticated.” 

With the recent wave of swatting incidents targeting schools, news outlets have identified several commonalities across communities and states, including , state-by-state of hoax calls and similar , 

Such hallmarks are consistent in at least a half dozen states, , which noted that multiple local police officials had reportedly traced the calls back to Africa. 

In Minnesota, 17 false calls were placed by someone with a distinct accent using the same voice over IP technology, Drew Evans, superintendent of the state bureau of criminal apprehension, told Wired. 

“There’s a lot of different technology that could make it appear to be a single person,” Evans said. “But all the indications we have are that it’s either one person or a single entity.” 

Conceptually, swatting is straightforward and in many ways follows the bomb-threat playbook that’s pushed schools into lockdowns and panic for generations. Often using technology to mask their true identities and locations, threat actors call the police to report an emergency like an active shooting or a hostage situation with the goal of forcing tactical SWAT teams to descend on a target and cause panic. In several cases, these malicious false alarms have ended in death.

Fame, notoriety and callous oneupmanship has long motivated swatting attacks, which have their origins in the video gaming community. The slew of and in recent months is likely a motivating factor, Turgal said.

In previous swatting cases — , like Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber and — many of the perpetrators turned out to be kids. Other swatting attacks have been politically motivated, ranging from those on extremist Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green to outspoken gun control advocate David Hogg, who survived the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida. 

In the last eight years, Los Angeles Police Detective Edward Dorroh has worked on hundreds of swatting incidents —  that . Of those, roughly 90% were carried out by children and teens, he told ����Ӱ��. Dorroh, who is currently assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, is assisting in police investigations on the latest swatting incidents targeting schools. For that reason, Dorroh said he couldn’t comment on current cases, but discussed his deep experience with these shadowy crimes and how police confront them. 

Among the gaming community which latched onto the practice, Dorrah said the act is considered even more rewarding if they can get a heavily armed, tactical police response on camera as gamers livestream their gameplay on platforms like — a particular swatting attack “in the category of ‘for the LOLs,’ for the entertainment,” Dorroh said. 

“They’re looking for influence,” he said. “They brag about it and they build up a reputation and then what happens is people start to hire them out to do swattings. That’s where a lot of your school stuff comes in.”

Such paid swat-for-hire schemes, he said, aren’t relegated to the dark web; they’re openly promoted on the instant messaging platform popular among gamers and young people generally, with more than . 

In a statement, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said that while the recent emergency calls “are believed to be a hoax,” it has encouraged local law enforcement agencies “to take any and all threats seriously” while they partner with state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate. 

The FBI has acknowledged in a statement to ����Ӱ�� and other media outlets that they’re probing the surge in incidents, but they’ve provided little specific information. 

“The FBI takes swatting very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” the bureau said in the statement. “While we have no information to indicate a specific and credible threat, we will continue to work with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to gather, share, and act upon threat information as it comes to our attention.”

Swat for profit 

Law enforcement officials have been grappling with swatting attacks against schools for years. In 2015, sounded the alarm on swatting attacks against schools, shopping malls and private homes designed to capture national media attention, wage revenge on video game rivals or to make a profit.

“Incidents of swatting across the country are commonly linked, and investigations often lead to groups of malicious actors outside the U.S.,” the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell noted in a bulletin. “These foreign actors are often contacted and paid to conduct the swatting act by a student of the targeted school.” 

Amy Klinger, the co-founder and programs director of The Educator’s School Safety Network, has been tracking school threats and violence incidents for years to provide educators real-time information on emerging trends. Beginning in late August, data indicated the start of an unprecedented school swatting spike. Leaders at every school in the U.S., she said, should assume “at least in the short term” that their campus is likely to become the target of a false active-shooter report and they must be prepared for the call. 

“It is not necessarily within the control of the schools to prevent these events, because clearly they’re happening,” Klinger said.” But I do think it is within the control of the school to anticipate ‘What would we do if that happened to us?’ Being proactive is the responsibility of the school, especially knowing that these are happening at such a high level of frequency.”

Even though the school shooting threats are false, it’s important that educators and police remain diligent in responding to active-shooter calls without overreacting, said Kenneth Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services. While “knee-jerk reactions” like swift school closures can embolden threat actors to carry out additional attacks, he said, failure to react could get someone killed. When school officials receive an emergency call, he said they should “assess and then react, not react and then assess.”

“It’s not a prank, it’s not a joke, it’s a cruel hoax and it’s really causing a lot of anxiety in communities, even more so post-Uvalde,” said Trump, offering a stern message to whomever is targeting schools nationwide. “When law enforcement catches up with you, which they will, you’re facing some very serious consequences — stuff that’s going to stay with you for the rest of your life.” 

Swatting presents real-world dangers

Dorroh, the LAPD detective, knows firsthand the fear that comes with reports of an active school shooting. Just last month, a school in suburban Los Angeles where his wife is a teacher was forced into lockdown when someone swatted a nearby high school. He said that knowledge of the national trend allowed him to offer a measured emotional response.

Aside from psychological harm, there haven’t been any reports of widespread injuries stemming from the school swatting surge. Last month in Georgia, a police officer and another driver were as the cops raced to the scene of a school that was targeted in a swatting attack. 

But several swatting incidents outside of schools have led to deaths, highlighting the dangers the hoax presents to educators and students. Of two high-profile swatting cases where people died, Dorroh helped investigate both. 

Last year, 20-year-old Shane Sonderman of rural Tennessee was after he helped carry out a swatting attack on a 60-year-old computer programmer who refused to give up the coveted Twitter handle “@Tennessee.” When police officers surrounded his house, the father of three and grandfather of six suffered a fatal heart attack. Sonderman, who began swatting as a teenager, with others, including a minor in the United Kingdom, to wage the attack. Dorroh said that for Sonderman, swatting was his only social outlet. 

Another swatting attack, carried out by Tyler Barriss of Los Angeles, led to the fatal police shooting of an unsuspecting man in Wichita, Kansas. Dorroh said his first run-in with Barriss was during an earlier investigation into hoax bomb threats targeting schools — phone calls that were never recorded. In that earlier case, police were able to pin him down after he made a hoax call to a television station. 

Then, in 2017, Barriss called police and told them he was at a house in Wichita, where he shot his father and was holding his family hostage. Except it wasn’t his house — it was the home of an unsuspecting 28-year-old man who police said became confused when they arrived. Amid the commotion, an officer shot and killed him.

Barriss had carried out the attack on behalf of two video gamers who were in a feud after a “Call of Duty” match ended in one’s defeat. One gamer used Twitter to recruit Barriss to carry out the attack on a second gamer — who provided Barriss with the Kansas address. All three were charged criminally, and in 2019 in prison. 

“I was charging people, depending on how much of a stranger they were to me, anywhere from $20 to $50 per swat,” Barriss said in a recent episode of the Netflix documentary series Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet. “But, quite frankly, I enjoyed the thrill of swatting, I just enjoyed doing it, having it appear on the news and bragging about it on Twitter.” 

Between 2015 and 2017, Barriss had been connected to false calls in Ohio, Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Missouri, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, Connecticut and New York.

“When we had the fatal swatting in Wichita, they thought [Barriss] might be a suspect so when we heard the audio recording it was like ‘Ya, that’s him,’ right off the bat,” Dorroh said. “It was just the matter of finding him and getting him into custody.”

“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” Garland wrote in a media release Monday. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”

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The move comes less than a week after the 90,000-member National School Boards Association urged the Biden administration to act swiftly to protect public school leaders who face “an immediate threat” of violence as school board meetings nationwide grow increasingly volatile. The group cited more than 20 instances of threats, harassment and intimidation during board meetings in recent months amid tension over mask mandates and classroom instruction on critical race theory. The school board group referred to the violent threats as “domestic terrorism.”

In , Garland called on the federal agencies to meet with local law enforcement in the next month to create a plan to combat the “disturbing spike.” The Justice Department also announced plans to create a new task force focused on prosecuting people who threaten school leaders. The task force will include the FBI and the Justice Department’s criminal, security and civil rights divisions.

Officials also said they would create training resources that help school boards and administrators understand behaviors that constitute threats, how to report dangerous conduct to police and how to preserve relevant evidence.

Chip Slavin, the school board group’s interim executive director, said in a media release that the Justice Department’s response sent “a strong message to individuals with violent intent who are focused on causing chaos, disrupting our public schools and driving wedges between school boards and the parents, students and communities they serve.”

In one recent incident, police arrested an Illinois man for allegedly hitting a school official as he was being escorted out of a board meeting and, in another, an Ohio school board member received a letter in the mail warning threatening that she would “pay dearly” for requiring students to wear masks on campus. While some speakers have used board meetings to spread conspiracy theories and hate speech, other critics who frequently clash with their school boards to the national association’s assertion that their actions constitute “domestic terrorism.” Among them is activist and former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani, who tweeted that the school board group should apologize to parents.

Conservative lawmakers and activists, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, were quick to accuse officials of trampling on the free speech rights of parents who speak up at school board meetings. On Twitter, the Biden administration of using “federal law enforcement to punish dissent from the ruling class.”

Read the Justice Department memo here: