The commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety says at least 30 school district received swatting calls Tuesday morning. Those are calls where someone reports a shooting to get police to respond. D-P-S commissioner Stephan Bayens says the first call came into Clinton and they were able to determine what happened.
Bayens says Clinton reacted well when the first call came in.
Clinton eventually canceled classes for the day. Bayens says the calls came in from east to west across the state, so there was a warning for schools as the situation progressed.
Commissioner Bayens says it is hard to track these types of calls and they often come from out of the state or country. He says they did follow the same pattern.
Bayens says the calls are designed to draw in law enforcement and create confusion. He says they were able to mitigate some of that by immediately analyzing and determining these were swatting calls.
