Two Massive Police Responses To False Shooter Reports In Two Days
Revenge, as salami, is a dish best served up cold.
-Eugène Sue
Eleven months after officers in riot gear from multiple law enforcement agencies descended upon a ring of protesters at Pomona College and arrested 20 students, in the course of which more than a dozen were roughed up and one was hit with additional charges for fighting back, a highly-sophisticated operation was carried out this week in which the goal was to illustrate to the public the tendency of police agencies to overreact.
On March 12, 176 armed law enforcement officers from no fewer than six agencies were summoned or dispatched to Loma Linda University Medical Center after an emergency call was made to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department about a man in the throes of a mental crisis who was threatening to kill patients at the regional medical facility’s children’s hospital.
The initial call came in around 6 p.m.
The initial report was that an armed man, who had initially come into the hospital via the emergency room, had moved into the children’s hospital, where he posed a mortal threat to dozens, scores or maybe even hundreds of patients, employees and visitors.
Within less than twenty minutes, multiple media outlets and press organizations were provided with information, including alleged details about the ongoing incident to which the law enforcement agencies were privy and some details which the law enforcement agency did not have.
The man was, television, radio and newspaper reporters were told, armed with an AR-15 rifle, dressed in black, in possession of a bomb and carrying a duffle bag chock full of ammunition and spare weapons. He was in the midst of a full-blown mental-health crisis, hearing voices that were instructing him to shoot patients and was already inside the hospital, walking its corridors and stalking victims, those who were contracted were told.
The intensity of the response, both by the law enforcement agencies and the media was massive, with sheriff’s department helicopters circling the medical center and so many sheriff’s department and police department vehicles around the hospital grounds that neither those vehicles nor those driven by passers-by or the civilians being evacuated from the medical center’s various departments and buildings could transit freely.
Those inside the facilities who were obliged by the evacuation order were scrutinized by not one or two officers with weapons at the ready near the buildings’ entrance/exits but by dozens who were primed to open fire on anyone who so much as looked to be even a bit suspicious.
The Sheriff’s Department received a call around 6 p.m. about a man who said he was armed with an AR-15 rifle and a bomb at the hospital, was experiencing a mental-health crisis and heard voices in his head that told him to shoot patients at the medical center’s children’s hospital.
The potential shooter was described as a man wearing a black shirt and pants and holding a black duffle bag, according to broadcast reports.
For the first hour-and-a-half, scouts wearing body armor and helmets who were outfitted with high-resolution body cameras gingerly walked every corridor of the massive 364-bed medical center, checking every room, hallway, and closet, anticipating a gunfight or shoot-out at any moment. Personnel in the sheriff’s department’s Eagle mobile command post were able to in real time monitor the video being recorded by those scouts, while simultaneously poring over the floor plans of each level in the medical center to ascertain what the next step and overall response to the emergency was going to be.
When no armed individual was encountered by any of the scouts, at around 7:45, a decision was made to begin clearing those patients in the hospital who could be safely moved out of the facility.
Around 8 p.m., the department, which had been purposefully tight-lipped about what the operations consisted of, announced that its deputies and officers from other responding departments were “actively clearing” the hospital.
Later that evening, after 10 p.m., the hospital, after acknowledging that medical care within the hospital complex had been interrupted, put out a statement that “Law enforcement responded to the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital (at the medical center) this evening after an initial report of a situation in the emergency department. After a thorough investigation, it was confirmed there is no active threat on campus and normal business operations have resumed.”
While Molly Smith, a hospital spokeswoman, indicated there was “no active threat” in the medical center, the sheriff’s department did not make a similar assumption. Deputies lingered at various spots within the medical center, in particular around the children’s hospital overnight and the next morning and into the afternoon, deputies were still making wary-eyed perusals of the medical center grounds.
On the afternoon of March 13, an incensed San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus was making a statement in which he reflected the recognition that his department had been had by a hoaxer who had perpetrated what since 2008 or thereabouts has been referred to by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies as “swatting.” The term refers to provoking a SWAT [special weapons and tactics] team to respond to a particular location through a false report of an emergency situation. Dicus vowed dire consequences for the individual responsible if his department’s efforts to track down the perpetrator of the hoax proved successful.
Unbeknownst to Dicus, even as he was speaking the final touches were being put on the preparation for a nearly identical swatting incident, one which took place little more than a stone’s throw on the other side of the San Bernardino County line/Upland-Claremont border,
At 4:44 p.m., a call came into the Claremont Police Department from an individual who said he had a bomb and was holding another person hostage in a restroom on the Claremont McKenna College campus. He had a rifle, the caller said, and he was about to walk out onto the college grounds and shoot anyone and everyone he encountered.
The Claremont Police Department’s dispatch unit immediately contacted the administration department at Claremont McKenna College, providing an alert that a bomb threat had been made and a shooter was at large on the campus.
Within minutes, warnings were being disseminated, followed by a 4:56 p.m. announcement that there was a police presence at the college. In the meantime, the Claremont Police Department had put out a call for mutual aid, and the police departments in neighboring Upland and La Verne responded by detailing several cars to the school, as did Ontario. A 5:11 p.m an email went out to all students stating there was a “potential shooter on CMC Campus” and “Stay away from the area.” The email called upon anyone who saw anything suspicious to call 9-1-1 or campus police with their observations.
Campus security moved to lock down all buildings on or anywhere near the CMC campus, such as the Robert Day School of Economics, dormitories, those at adjacent Scripps and Pomona colleges, Honold Library, the graduate school, and the Peter F. Drucker School of Management. Those already inside were told to hunker down and shelter in place. Security officers approached those on foot anywhere on the campus and told them to leave the immediate area.
Shortly after the first of two engine companies with the Los Angeles County Fire Department arrived, which included members of the bomb squad, one after another ten separate SWAT teams in armored safety vehicles from the Claremont Police Department and other law enforcement agencies arrived, most converging at the corner of Columbia and Eighth Street between the CMC Campus and Honnold Library. Overhead, first one, then two and finally a third helicopter circled and crisscrossed above the campus.
By 8 p.m., after what were termed thorough and exhaustive searches of the CMC and the neighboring campuses and no one matching the description of the shooter/bomber turned up, law enforcement coordinators came to the conclusion that this was a swatting incident.
The following day, today, March 14, spring break commenced, at which point an estimated 70 to 80 percent of the students at the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges – Pomona, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer and CMC and those at the graduate school vacated those campuses for elsewhere until school resumes on April 24.
One year ago, there was considerable agitation and protest on the campus relating to
the Israel-Hamas War and the perception that Pomona College was in league with Israel.
At Pitzer College, another of the Claremont Colleges, there had been continuous protests since 2018 that involved Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine along with the Claremont Jewish Voice for Peace to convince that college’s administrators to end Pitzer’s ties with the University of Haifa in Israel which involved a study abroad program. In March 2024, in a concession to those protests, Pitzer officials had called for a vote of the student body about whether the program at the University of Haifa should be suspended, In the midst of the controversy over Israel’s occupation of Gaza, Pitzer students voted overwhelmingly to end the program.
Fresh off this victory, those students at the Claremont Colleges intensified the protests aimed at Pomona College over its ties to Israel in the aftermath of the occupation of Gaza.
A number of students, several of whom were in communication with Claremont Consortium Faculty for Justice in Palestine, began to erect on March 27, 2024 what was intended to be “protest art,” consisting of an eight-panel, 32-foot-long, eight-paneled “apartheid wall” outside the Smith Campus Center. The scenes depicted on the wall were intended to illustrate what the protester said was “unequal treatment of the Palestinian people living under the brutal conditions of the illegal Israeli Occupation” in Gaza. Slogans on the wall included, “Free Palestine,” “Disrupt the Death Machine,” “End the Murderous Occupation,” “Apartheid College; We are all Complicit,” and “Smash Imperialism, Long Live Int’l Solidarity.”
That display was accompanied by demands that Pomona College divest from Israeli companies or American, British, French and German companies aiding or providing military assistance to Israel.
On April 5, Pomona College officials dismantled the apartheid wall, which prompted an intensification of the protesters’ activity, which according to college officials involved blocking the entrances to the Pomona College main administration building and interfering with tours of the campus being given to applicants for admission to Pomona College/prospective students that were being conducted by college officials.
By 2 p.m. that afternoon there was a large gathering of protesters, which resulted in a matching show of force by the Claremont Police Department, which sent seven cars to the vicinity of Alexander Hall, Pomona College’s main administration building around which the main body of protesters was gathering. After about 15 minutes, the patrol cars left.
At around 3:45, a large number of protesters stormed into and then out of Alexander Hall, which prompted a call to the Claremont Police Department. At 4 p.m. , what was later enumerated as 18 protesters reentered the administration building and occupied the Pomona College President Gabrielle Starr’s office.
Another call went out to the Claremont Police Department, where that agency’s commanders did not feel they had sufficient manpower to quell the disturbance. Thereafter, they contacted the Pomona, La Verne and Azusa police departments, which responded by sending more than two dozen officers outfitted in riot gear.
While those officers from the three departments were en route to Claremont, another 50 protesters entered the building
Once the combined force of roughly 40 officers assembled outside the administration building, two officers entered Alexander Hall. While they were inside, the commanding officer on scene used a bullhorn to tell the protesters inside that they were being given an opportunity to leave voluntarily and immediately without any consequence.
It is not clear whether those inside could hear that offer over the chants of the crowd surrounding the building, which included, “Israel bombs, Pomona pays, how many kids will you kill today?” and “Gaza, Gaza, head held high, we will never let you die.” After several minutes passed without any reaction from those inside, the bullhorn was then used to inform those inside that they were being given the opportunity to come out of the building to accept a trespassing citation without being subject to arrest. Several minutes later, the bullhorn was again used to tell the protesters to leave. Less than five minutes later, officers from the four departments, with officers from Claremont in the lead, rushed into the building and effectuated the arrests.
The 20 students arrested taken to the Claremont Police Station where they were held for roughly seven hours, during which time, many of the protesters who had been assembled around Alexander Hall relocated to the Claremont Police Headquarters, where they resumed their protest. Inside, the 20 arrestees, who were enrolled at Pomona, Scripps and Pitzer colleges, were booked and then cite-released.
Before the 13 Pomona College students who were arrested were released around midnight, they had been identified to the Pomona College administration, which prepared emergency interim suspension documents were handed to them at the time of their release by a college employee. The emergency interim suspensions officially expelled the Pomona College students from the college campus, suspended them academically, and banned them from classes, the dormitory room each lived in, all of the college’s halls and any of the halls or classrooms of the other Claremont Colleges, any of the colleges’ dining halls, libraries or residence halls. The action meant that none of the Pomona students were able to complete their classes that semester or gain college credit from them. Any seniors that were due to graduate in May 2024 were not able to do so. Pomona College has not disclosed how many of its students arrested on April 5. 2024 were seniors due to graduate.