North Idaho swatting calls trigger school lockdown, mall evacuation

A false emergency call sent deputies, police and bomb technicians racing into two North Idaho communities in the span of two weeks, shutting down a high school in Benewah County and evacuating one of Kootenai County’s busiest shopping centers.

At St. Maries High School, the Benewah County Sheriff’s Office said the response started around 9:30 a.m. May 13 after a caller threatened to bring a weapon to the school and kill people. Deputies and St. Maries City Police searched the campus, found nothing threatening or suspicious, and lifted the lockdown. One deputy stayed behind for precautionary monitoring, and officers also checked the middle school and elementary school campuses before clearing the area.

The sheriff’s office is still trying to identify who made the call and asked anyone with information to contact Undersheriff Tyler Morris at 208-245-2555. The incident underscored how quickly a single false report can pull local law enforcement away from other calls, while forcing students, teachers and parents into hours of uncertainty.

A similar scare hit Coeur d’Alene on May 1, when a call to Silver Lake Mall came in around 3:50 p.m. and included threats of gun violence and a bomb. Police ordered an evacuation and called in a wide response that included the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho State Police and the Spokane Bomb Squad. The all-clear did not come until 6:30 p.m., leaving shoppers, employees and bystanders to wait through a prolonged and tense response.

Interim police chief Dave Hagar said swatting drains public resources and creates a serious mental impact on the students, staff, shoppers and bystanders forced into the middle of the scare. One mall shopper said she learned the building was surrounded by police through Facebook, a reminder that rumors and fragments of information can spread faster than verified details during a crisis.

Law enforcement leaders say that makes swatting especially difficult to combat. Morris and Hagar have said callers often hide their identities, switch numbers or use apps to mask where the call originated. The FBI says a swatting incident can be an isolated attack on one target or part of a larger coordinated effort to hit multiple victims. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says the practice diverts critical resources, can delay responses to real emergencies and can create mistrust in emergency response.

Idaho lawmakers have also moved to stiffen penalties. Senate Bill 1019 was introduced in 2025 to strengthen criminal punishment for false emergency reports used to harass people, reflecting how seriously the state is beginning to treat what used to be dismissed as a prank.