More than a dozen universities have been targeted by false active shooter reports. It may take a while to find these swatters

Over the past 10 days, more than a dozen college campuses have been the target of the dangerous criminal hoax known as swatting, with law enforcement lured to a location in response to a false report of a horrific crime.

Active shooter alerts at Villanova University in Pennsylvania and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga sent panicked students preparing for the new school year scrambling for cover as first responders swarmed campuses on August 21. In both cases, dispatchers heard what sounded like gunshots in the background of the calls — lending a disturbing realism.

Since then, campuses across the country have received similar hoax calls, including Texas Tech University, Iowa State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Northern Arizona University.

Law enfor