Excerpt from Los Angeles Times

Earlier this month, the Claremont Police Department received a chilling 911 report: A caller said they were holding someone captive inside a Claremont McKenna College restroom, carrying a bomb and preparing to shoot anyone they saw on campus.

The call triggered a massive deployment of law enforcement and SWAT team members and sent waves of panic coursing through campus as students scrambled to find cover.

But the crisis was fake, the result of a “swatting” call, a hoax 911 report made in the hope of generating a large law enforcement response. The incident took place one day after a similar threat prompted a lockdown of Loma Linda University’s Children’s Hospital.

“Right now, California law falls short,” state Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) said in a statement. “Unless a threat names a specific individual, officials have limited options, even when the danger is clear.”

Rubio is the author of Senate Bill 19, known as the Safe Schools and Places of Worship Act, which would allow prosecutors to charge individuals who make credible threats of mass violence against schools and places of worship, even if they don’t name a specific person. The goal is to hold people accountable for making intentional threats, recognizing that even hoax threats can cause mass panic, school closures and expensive law enforcement responses.

Read the full article from the Los Angeles Times here.