Multiple Texas colleges and universities, including Texas A&M in College Station, received hoax shooting calls on Thursday.
It is unclear whether the false reports were connected, although the calls all arrived in the morning.
The 9:45 a.m. call about an active shooter at north Texas’ Collin College sent the school into lockdown, according to administrators and the Plano Police Department. The report was determined to be false, and classes resumed in the afternoon.
Waco police confirmed similar false active shooter threats at Baylor University, which also came in around 9:45 a.m., according to TV news station KWTX.
A&M police said their call referenced a shooting at the Health Science Center, and authorities found no threat to campus.
San Antonio police also dealt with a hoax call at an address housing the Galen College of Nursing, department officials wrote on Twitter.
Hoax calls, also referred to as “swatting,” have seemingly been on the rise over the past year, according to the Associated Press. FBI officials in November said they believed some of the calls came from outside of the U.S., and they had identified calls to about 250 colleges and 100 high schools since June 2022.