Opinion: No injuries, deaths in school shooting hoax, but people still got hurt

LaTia Farria knew this wasn't a drill. As fully equipped police officers swarmed outside the window of her classroom at Princeton High School on Sept. 23, she grew increasingly worried. An active shooter might be in the building and worse yet, close by, she feared. Farria braced herself against a wall with a small hammer in hand and prepared for whatever happened next.

"At first I couldn't think. It was like my mind went blank. Then, I had to pray. I just asked God to intervene," said Farria, who teaches 10th and 11th grade English. She also has a 15-year-old daughter who is a sophomore at Princeton High School and a 12-year-old daughter at the middle school.

"When we have drills, they might last 10 or 15 minutes, maybe a class period at most. It was scary to realize this isn't going to be over in 10 minutes," she said. "Usually, you can comfort yourself with the thought of only having to withstand something for a specific amount of time, but there was no definite end to this."

A little over an hour after receiving an emergency call reporting an active shooter at the school, officials declared it a hoax. Princeton was one of at least eight Ohio schools targeted in false active shooter reports on Sept. 23. The FBI says it's part of a national trend of false school shooting threats, otherwise known as "swatting."

In the end, there was no shooter at Princeton. No deaths. No physical injuries. But that doesn't mean no one got hurt.

"The incident wasn't real, but the trauma was real," Farria said. "A lot of us are dealing with the after-effects of what was a very traumatic event for all of us."

Farria said her 15-year-old was hesitant about going back to school the following Monday. They talked about it and decided it was important for them to resume life and not allow any anxiety to build, so they both returned to the classroom.

"It was a difficult day for her, but she made it through," Farria said of her daughter. "I thought I was fine, but the first day back I was teaching and then at about 10 a.m. it hit me, because 10 a.m. was the time on Friday when we got the alert. All of a sudden I was experiencing this sense of uncomfortableness."

The shooting hoax also dredged up some painful memories and unresolved emotions from a gun incident she experienced nearly 20 years ago.

"I worked as a bank teller and I got robbed twice," she said. "The first time, it was an individual who passed a note and indicated they had a weapon and no one was harmed and there was no weapon. About three months later, three individuals came in and took over the branch on a Wednesday morning right after the bank opened, and they had masks and guns. It was very scary.

"I thought, I've been robbed twice and now I'm here with an active shooter. What else could a person go through?"

Farria is a childhood friend and one of two people I know personally who were impacted by the false shooting report. I was actually on a church conference call with my friend and fellow pastor, the Rev. Terrence Cato, when he got word about the potential active shooter. Like Farria, he has two children who attend Princeton − a 16-year-old daughter who is a junior at the high school and a 12-year-old son at the middle school.

Cato said when his daughter texted him about the possible active shooter, then followed that up with a call where she was speaking in hushed tones, he and his wife dropped everything and rushed to the school.

"I grabbed my two best friends Smith & Wesson, and I'm out the door," said Cato, who is licensed to carry a firearm. "All I could think about was I'm going to do whatever I've got to do to get to my kids. I wasn't waiting on a situation like what happened in Uvalde (Texas), not with my children. I wasn't leaving that school without my kids."

Cato commended law enforcement for their care and professional response to the incident, even though there were some tense moments when he first arrived at the scene. While he felt an overwhelming sense of relief when he heard the shooting threat wasn't real, other emotions welled up inside of him.

"Anger, anxiety, rage ‒ I'm emotional over something that didn't even happen," Cato said, choking back tears, even days after the incident. "Whether real or fake, it is just as damaging, just as traumatizing. The sense of danger is real, the fear of losing a loved one is real. No parent should have to deal with the fear of losing a child. This type of behavior is unacceptable."

Amen, reverend.

At least four of the 911 calls falsely reporting active shooters at Ohio high schools appear to have been made by the same person. At the time of this writing, no arrests had been made and police had no concrete suspects.

Whoever is responsible should face the full weight of the law when captured. Perhaps there even needs to be a review of our laws to create stiffer penalties for this type of false reporting as a strong deterrent. Weaponizing a prank call can not only cause mass hysteria, but it could still result in injuries and possible deaths, if panic sets in and things go awry.

Think of the police manpower, resources and thousands of taxpayer dollars that were wasted. There was a helicopter and a drone that circled the school campus for well over an hour, more than 100 police officers were dispatched, fire and EMS units from at least nine different jurisdictions were there and interstate traffic was snarled for hours with frantic parents scrambling to get to the scene. And then there is the incalculable emotional toll this hoax has caused to educators, students, parents and the families and friends attached to them all.

Unfortunately, active shooter incidents − real or fake − are becoming too normalized in our society. It's time for all Americans to take a stronger stand against those who seek to wreak havoc and chaos and sow fear in our schools and communities. While the word hoax might be an accurate description by definition, it hardly seems like an adequate word to describe such a malicious and insidious act. I liken it more to domestic terrorism.

Farria said she hopes the culprit is brought to justice, though she said she couldn't say what would be an appropriate punishment for the crime. She's prepared for the possibility that she may never know who is responsible and that they may never face consequences. Unfortunately, it's familiar territory.

"Those men who robbed me at the bank got away and were never caught. There was never any resolution," she said. "I think that prepared me for this. What really makes me sad is that individuals who do this type of thing don't have any care or feeling for the mayhem it causes. In fact, that was probably the intent.

"No matter the punishment, I'm not sure they are capable of feeling the remorse they should feel," she said. "I wish they could recognize the horrible impact they've had on so many people."

Cato said he worries that such hoaxes could affect the response to future active shooter reports.

"Do police send out the same level of response the next time? Do they pause just long enough to wonder whether it's real or fake and that pause costs lives?" he said. "I know police will continue to treat it as serious, but the fact that I even have to think about that as a parent is troubling."

The 51-year-old pastor said the person or persons responsible should face the most severe penalties. He said he still wrestles with sending his children to school every day, wondering if his kiss goodbye is just for the day or forever.

"You come to the reality that this is the world we live in today, and you start to ask yourself, 'Why do we have to accept this and live with it?' " Cato said. "The answer is, we don't. It's time for America to wake up and really change. Not enough is being done."

Opinion and Engagement Editor Kevin S. Aldridge can be reached at kaldridge@enquirer.com. Twitter: @kevaldrid.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Opinion: No injuries, deaths in school shooting hoax, but people still got hurt