Episode 9: Swatting with Jill Sanchez

OT Ep. 9 – Transcription.txt
00;00;09;02 – 00;04;22;00
Rick Hoaglund
Welcome to OnTopic with Empathia. I’m your host, Rick Hoaglund. Today on the show, we’ll meet Jill Sanchez, an employee assistance program counselor who has 25 years of experience assisting victims of trauma. She has a master’s degree in educational psychology with an emphasis in rehabilitation counseling. She’s also a certified employee assistance professional. Jill has a vast experience performing critical incident, mental health services for people involved in traumatic incidents. Before we meet Jill, a little background on our subject. It’s called swatting. Somebody just shot seven students in the bathroom, a caller told a New York 911 dispatch center on March 30th. Officers from four different law enforcement agencies with long rifles and tactical gear rushed toward Westhill High School in Syracuse, New York. The call would later be deemed a hoax. No student had been shot in the school’s bathroom. Yet parents and community members who learned of law at the law enforcement response feared that their school might be the next target of a mass shooting. This was captured in a story reported by ABC News on their website. Senator Chuck Schumer reported that on March 30th, the day of the swatting, there were 36 false reports of mass shooting incidents in New York state schools. And emotions were running high at that time. This was just three days since an active shooter killed six people, three adults and three schoolchildren in Nashville, Tennessee. And it’s not just schools that are falling victim. Police and FBI reports show that online gamers, celebrities and other small and large businesses are also being targeted. Now, the exact number of swatting incidents is not officially tracked, but it is known that the number is in the hundreds of incidents per year. So what is swatting? Swatting involves falsely reporting an emergency to law enforcement in order to prompt a large police response, including the SWAT team. This could be a report of an active shooter, bomb threat, hostage situation, kidnaping, or someone threatening to kill themselves or someone else. The swatting incidents have been on the rise since 2013, with a significant rise in the number of cases since 2017. This is according to the FBI. Swatting can be deadly. In 2017, a police officer in Kansas shot and killed a man while responding to a hoax emergency call. The call that led to his death began as a feud between two online gamers. Police in Maryland shot a 20 year old man in the face with rubber bullets after a fake hostage situation was reported in his home. And on April 27th, 2020, a 60 year old man from Tennessee died of a heart attack after police responded to false reports of a woman being killed in his home. The swatting was organized in an attempt to force the man to give up his Twitter handle. Swatting is illegal. It’s more than just a hoax. Swatting can be prosecuted through federal and state statutes. These include false reporting, harassment, endangerment, damage to property, conspiracy. So why would someone do this? The motivations of swatting can vary, but they often involve a desire to intimidate, harass or seek revenge against the victim. Swatting is typically carried out anonymously or through the use of fake identities, which can make it more difficult to identify those perpetuating this hoax and also to determine their motivation. Some of the common reasons why people engage in swatting include pranking, revenge, attention seeking, criminal activity, psychological issues, political reasons, or failure to pay ransom. Now that we understand a little about swatting, what happens to those that are target of the SWAT? Let’s meet Jill! Hi, Jill! Welcome to the podcast.

00;04;22;02 – 00;04;23;18
Jill Sanchez
Hi, Rick. How are you?

00;04;23;21 – 00;04;35;21
Rick Hoaglund
I’m great. I’m great. Tell me a little bit about your story. So as we were prepping for this, you said there was a swatting incident that I was a part of. Can you tell me what- how that worked with you?

00;04;35;24 – 00;07;17;11
Jill Sanchez
Yes. So it was interesting when you had asked me to join this podcast and talk about just like trauma related to swatting, I thought, Oh, how crazy is this? That I actually was just part of something and had my own personal experience. But what happened was a few weeks ago I was in Florida on spring break with two of my four kids and I was on a beach and all of a sudden the police were coming on the beach and they were clearing the beach. And I had just heard maybe 5 minutes earlier, a kid had been in the village and where we were and and had heard that there was a bomb threat at a hotel. So when I heard it, it was sort of like, oh, there was a bomb threat. But for whatever reason, it didn’t really resonate for me until the police presence came. And so then they started coming down there, like literally on the, you know, on the sand. Picture Baywatch. Like, look, those kinds of things as I had a megaphone telling everyone to get off the beach. And so I because I’m a curious person, I so I went up to the car and I said, Hey, what’s going on here? And they wouldn’t tell me, but I already knew this piece of information about the bomb threat. And so it was so fascinating to me just watching. I mean, there are hundreds of people on the beach and, you know, some people are immediately picking up and out of there, some people are taking their time and just sort of how the kind of people’s behavior. I was just sort of taking note and I couldn’t help but put my trauma hat on and think to myself – well, first off, I should say first I was thinking about myself, which is usually what you do when you experience something like that. And I noticed I felt like my heart was racing a little bit. And I thought, you know, is it safe? Should I go home? Like, I was going through this whole process, like trying to come up with, like, what should I do? And and then I went to that place of looking at others. And again, that’s where I was kind of wondering, like, you have no idea how people are experiencing this. You know, you have people on this. I mean, there’s hundreds of people, someone that was maybe at a school where there was a shooting or maybe they were at a school when there was a lockdown and there was not an event. And just how those kinds of events kind of play out. So it was very fascinating just to be part of that and just started to watch just this collective huge group and how that how we reacted.

00;07;17;13 – 00;07;38;13
Rick Hoaglund
So tell me a little bit about the individual so you can talk about yourself. You can talk about any of these people on the beach, but you started to go where past trauma comes up during these kind of events. And how does that work? I mean, as an individual, do you are you reacting based on your history or on what’s going on present or a combination of the two? How does that work?

00;07;38;23 – 00;08;46;17
Jill Sanchez
So when you think about when somebody experiences something traumatic, so basically something traumatic is a, you know, a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. And so whether or not it’s deeply distressing or or disturbing experience depends on your perception. And so if you have when we’re talking about perception, if you’ve had you could have had your own experience of trauma, maybe you’ve never had an experience of trauma, but you’ve watched trauma unfold on the news. So one of the things I thought about was think about how often we see the news and we see kids coming out of high schools with their hands up. Now, I’ve never been at a high school when that’s happened, but I have a story. I have imagery to think of. And so So it could be your own traumatic experience. It could be just things you witnessed in the news. So you have ways to piece the story together. Does that make sense?

00;08;46;19 – 00;08;48;23
Rick Hoaglund
Definitely it does make sense, so-

00;08;48;26 – 00;10;50;14
Jill Sanchez
Yeah, so it’s kind of like it’s like the story you tell yourself, the story you create is part of- is actually what the trauma could be. This isn’t really related to swatting, but I think it kind of hones in on perception. And so one of the things as a mental health counselor, I’ve for many, many years responded to critical incident events where I go on site and I provide support to individuals that have been impacted by something traumatic. And there’s this organization I responded to at one point a number of years ago where perception became so like, I can’t even explain how clear this came to me. And I was working with people that had been in this organization. So this is not a swatting. This is actually there was an event that actually happened. There were employees that could have had some sort of threat happen to them and is thinking just vaguely about it. But there was like a gun involved. They’ll say that there’s a gun involved. And so the individuals that were present were the gun was had less trauma than the individuals that were locked down at another part of the organization. And the building. And the reason is because the individuals that saw the event unfold saw that they are actually safe. It was taken down quickly. They were okay. And then the individuals that were in lockdown for an hour or however long it was, we’re playing a story, you know, in their mind. You could have been in lockdown thinking there’s someone mad loose in this company, or you could have who knows what they were thinking, but they were more impacted, I should say, more because I don’t know what each of their stories are. But initially it seemed like they were more traumatized because they didn’t know they were safe. It was more the story that they had created in their mind than the individuals that saw it happen. And it was contained very quickly.

00;10;50;16 – 00;11;05;16
Rick Hoaglund
So how does a person know that they’ve been impacted? I mean, I can see people from the outside saying, oh, it wasn’t a real event in these swatting events, it wasn’t a real event. Therefore, you know, you’re fine, blah, blah, blah, blah. But how do you know if you actually were impacted?

00;11;05;21 – 00;11;57;04
Jill Sanchez
Well, first off, when something like that happens, it’s absolutely normal that you would feel, you know, that increased heart rate, that you would feel nervous, that your security might feel frightened, that you feel vulnerable. Those are all normal responses. So the majority of people, you know, some people will feel that and that is completely normal. It’s sort of like it’s those symptoms or those things you experience continue. So, you know, if you go for you know, if it’s the first few days and you experience that, but it starts to lessen, that’s good. That’s normal. Most people, again, would have that kind of response to an event that they felt threatened. But if it doesn’t improve, then that would be when, you know, gosh, I, I was really impacted more significantly than I realized.

00;11;57;07 – 00;12;16;22
Rick Hoaglund
And what should they do? So I figured out, I’m not sleeping well. I may not be eating well after this. I changed my routine, all those kind of things at following this. And I realized, hey, I think this thing really, really did impact me. What should I do? Is it seeking professional help or anything I could do on my own? Should I Google it?

00;12;16;24 – 00;13;39;09
Jill Sanchez
You could Google anything! You know, typically, when I’m on site working with people that have experienced something, whether it was a swatting event or an, an event, actual event, actually, I shouldn’t even say actual event because that a swatting event is an actual event. Typically, what we encourage people to do is to think about what are your normal self care things that you do. So, you know, if I’m sitting in a group, I would generally say, you know, you’re someone that, exercise is your thing. I would encourage you to exercise it if your and you know, and usually we all have in our toolbox a lot of things we do. So maybe it’s getting out in nature, going on a walk, exercising. If you’re someone that practices mindfulness, you know, making sure that you’re doing that basic things like getting sleep, eating, you know, drinking water, not alcohol. But what I always think is interesting when you’re going through an event, a traumatic event or grief, you get thirsty, you know, you get really thirsty. So making sure that you have and that’s your body’s response to that sort of event. So, you know, making sure you’re hydrated, all those sort of basic self-care things are so important immediately following an event like a swatting.

00;13;39;12 – 00;13;59;25
Rick Hoaglund
So what would be a trigger to say, I need professional help? I know this about myself. Is it when something becomes obsessive at that point, like you’re not sleeping for days and days, or you find yourself doing some bad habit? Like what? What are the things that you’d say, okay, you need to see. You need to seek some professional assistance with this.

00;13;59;27 – 00;15;17;03
Jill Sanchez
You would want to seek professional help if, again, that the symptoms are not improving, you know, so if you start out the first few days, you didn’t sleep at all. Again, that’s probably a normal response to something that’s very abnormal. But in a week or two, if your sleep is getting worse, you know, that would be something to pay attention to. If you are again, the first week, you you take off a day of work because you just need to like, decompress. You need to just sort of be totally normal response to taking care of yourself. But in three weeks or a month after, if you are now missing two or three days of work, something to pay attention to, and that would be definitely when you would want to, you know, consider, you know, seeking professional help also like intrusive memories or flashbacks or nightmares or, again, anything more extreme that’s happening, you know, a month, months later, again, it’d be very normal those first few weeks to be having some of those things. But the key is if they’re not improving and if they’re not, I would very much encourage people to seek help and help process that as well.

00;15;17;28 – 00;15;41;16
Rick Hoaglund
What if you’re a parent and this has happened at your child’s school? Because this is pretty I’m not going to call it common because it’s still a rare occurrence. But it’s it’s it does happen. And even like the elementary, junior high school level folks, what can parents watch for in their kids? I mean it. And at what point should is the trigger the same for a child as it is for an adult to seek additional help?

00;15;41;18 – 00;16;59;26
Jill Sanchez
I think with kids, you might see you’re going to see it similarly. But different if that makes so, you know, like an adult that feels depressed, you might see that they feel down where a kid that feels depressed, you’re going to probably see a kid that’s irritable and moody. And and and this is where it’s tricky with teenagers. Teenagers are sometimes irritable. So the key for a parent is any time a kid’s behavior is different than their normal behavior, that’s a key that they’re really struggling. So and I say that because, again, you know, I have a teenage – I have thee teenage boys and they’re they can be irritable, you know, I mean, it’s you’re a teenager. Life can be hard for a lot of different reasons. But that would be any kind of behavior out of your teen. That’s different than normal. And parents know their kids better than anyone. So really just kind of being paying attention. So if your kid is let’s say they’re a straight-A student and they come home and they have a D or even a C, you know, but that’s very unusual for them, that’s really something to pay attention to.

00;16;59;28 – 00;17;20;10
Rick Hoaglund
How can a parent support a child that might be going through it? They’ve just been through a swatting event. Maybe the parent has been called to school to pick the student up. How do you go about supporting them? I mean, especially in those first day or the first few hours following, you picked up your child and maybe it depends on the child’s age. I don’t know. But what do you do to support folks that have gone through this?

00;17;20;12 – 00;18;32;08
Jill Sanchez
As a parent, I think the key would be really trying to find out what they know about it, because you may know more about it than they know about it because you might have been watching that news. You really don’t know what was playing out for them. So I think really it is absolutely important to to talk about it or even to make space for them to talk about it. They may not want to, but that they know that you have there’s a safe space to discuss what’s on their mind. But that would be the checking in with them about what they experienced and what would they actually know about it. Because one kid again, this is where we talk about the stories that we have. You could have two different kids in the same classroom that experience it 100% different. And so it’s really important to kind of find out what how they perceived the event, not how we perceive that you’re not putting our own stuff on our kids. So really trying to step back and give them that space, you know, just asking them what are their thoughts and feelings about what happened at school today.

00;18;32;15 – 00;19;09;16
Rick Hoaglund
Let’s talk about an adult now. So an adult that’s gone through swatting. I have two questions on this. The first one, and then I’ll get to the second one. But the first one is, you know, it’s a very high profile thing, especially if it’s an individual you’re on, you’re in your house, you’re sleeping. Maybe because he’s out, usually happen in the evenings, SWAT team comes in, the neighbors all see all of this cars and then what’s going on? It could be on the news, but it’s probably going to be on social media because someone will put it on social media. What are they going through and how do they process this? Do you have any advice for someone that’s gone through swatting like that?

00;19;09;18 – 00;20;16;08
Jill Sanchez
Well, first off, I guess, I mean, that’s a terrible, horrible thing to be part of because in the end, just putting myself in the shoes of someone that’s in their home and they’re sleeping and that kind of situation unfolds and you have no idea why they’re there. I mean, I could you even imagine, like you don’t have any idea. In fact, I read a story about a guy in 2015 who this happened to him. It was it was a gaming thing. And someone sent them to the house and he talked about how traumatic it was and that, like, someone could have been hurt, you know, like, here it was all it was all a hoax and it wasn’t true. But his family like how outraged that someone can feel that was violated like that because, you know, their own safety is violated in their own home. And here it’s because the police are coming to actually protect a situation, and yet they’re a victim. It’s just it’s actually fascinating that this is even going on. I guess.

00;20;16;10 – 00;20;27;20
Rick Hoaglund
So tell me you have someone that you know, or maybe they’re not even a close friend, but you feel like you need to reach out and they’ve gone through a swatting event. What kind of support can you lend somebody?

00;20;27;22 – 00;22;40;24
Jill Sanchez
Well, I think the key would be, however you’re going to reach out for support would be to really acknowledge what happened. And that’s probably the most critical thing in this kind of event, because someone that experiences that may feel as if it’s very confusing for them because maybe they were never in threat, like a real threat, but they feel like they were. So it’s as traumatic as if there was a real threat because their brain felt that same threat. Whether or not there was or was not the threat. So what I would encourage people to do is really that acknowledgment. And, you know, if you’re a close friend, obviously acknowledging being available, letting them know you’re you’re there for them. I also think it’s very important to ask them what they need. You know, sometimes people just kind of swoop in and want to take care of things for people. And sometimes people need maybe maybe they’re not ready for that and they need space or, you know, we’re all different. So I think it’s really important to, you know, again, acknowledge and then also to ask them what they need. I know I went through a personal loss in my life where for me practical help was was very helpful. So people bringing over meals. So it could be a situation like that where maybe this person that’s went through this event has, you know, a large family and needs kind of practical help and but not just doing it, really asking them, you know, would this be helpful? Is another good way. And then lastly, I think besides giving them the space to talk about it, checking in, because a lot of times what happens with many events like this is that in the moment there’s a lot of action and people are it’s top of mind and when the shock wears off for everybody, people forget. And then you go down, you know, weeks down the road, this person is still in it and struggling and then that support isn’t there. So, you know, if you’re a good friend with this person, again, that checking in and it could be a simple text I’m thinking about you that goes a long way, too.

00;22;41;12 – 00;23;18;18
Rick Hoaglund
So if this happens in a place that this person has to visit a lot, so maybe it’s in a school, maybe it’s in their workplace, you know, I guess maybe even the home. But but let’s leave the home out for a second. So it happens in a in a in a place that they have to visit often. How does like the employer or the principal or someone that works at the school, what can they expect when when the students come in or the employees come back to work? Like, is this do they need to be prepared or is it literally just it’s another day at work? They need to come in. It’s another day of school when the bell rings, we expect them to sit down and start. Yeah. What should they be doing.

00;23;19;24 – 00;24;29;25
Jill Sanchez
That is a great question Rick, and I think it is very important that it isn’t another day at school or another day at work, because if you treat it that way, then you’re treating it like it didn’t happen in it and basically invalidating that experience. And so almost what I would as an organization, you would wonder, what would you do if someone was actually there? You know, there was actually a shooting event. How would you handle that? What’s your plan within your organization on handling those and how can you mirror something like that? So is it what is, let’s say, the first day back to work after a shooting? Well, then obviously every event is different. It’s you can’t is not a cookie cutter solution. But, you know, if it’s an assembly where you are acknowledging the impact and, you know, we’ve got counselors here, you know, however they’re going to handle it. But really thinking about that consistency in how you’d handle a shoot, an actual shooter and or one that was a hoax because your people are going to be experiencing the same kinds of reactions.

00;24;29;28 – 00;24;53;02
Rick Hoaglund
Do you have any words of advice about the effects of a swatting that you could give to the general public? I mean, they they may feel like, oh, this is this person just they’ve gone through this. It was a hoax. They should be able to brush it off. And I know I had mentioned that earlier, but I really think that that’s pretty common. And what I’ve read about swatting. So if you’re just talking to the general public, what’s your message to them?

00;24;53;16 – 00;25;47;10
Jill Sanchez
It is a real traumatic event. You know that It’s a you know, the definition of trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. And so that acknowledgment is so important because that’s actually that’s key to healing, because any time you don’t acknowledge something happened, that’s when people struggle. And so even when I go to companies and do like a group for a critical incident, one of the first things you do is you state what happened, you acknowledge the event. And so that you know, whether or not you’re a neighbor or you’re a coworker or you know, however you’ve learned of someone’s being impacted by something like this, you don’t know what the impact is on them, right? Because you don’t know what it is. But acknowledging that it happened. So that’s a really important thing to do. I think when it comes to healing.

00;25;47;17 – 00;26;00;10
Rick Hoaglund
So what’s the long term potential long term effects? Obviously, some people there won’t be much, but what is the potential out there like, can someone have PTSD or something like that?

00;26;00;11 – 00;26;49;00
Jill Sanchez
Yes, absolutely. It’s important to know that the majority of individuals will process something like this and will be able to move through it. The majority will, but there definitely could be a percentage of people that could be impacted, that it could be, you know, turn to post-traumatic stress disorder. And, you know, that would be, of course, if someone is continuing to experience those normal feelings they have in the beginning, that again, starts to impact every area of their life. And they’re not getting to work and they’re having, again, those nightmares and flashbacks. So those would be more of the extreme situations. And in general, most people will process through it and really recover, but definitely possible.

00;26;49;13 – 00;26;59;06
Rick Hoaglund
You had mentioned earlier that people perceive that there’s a threat sometimes when there isn’t even a true threat. What’s your view on that? Like, how does that work?

00;26;59;08 – 00;28;48;15
Jill Sanchez
What is so fascinating is that how our brains work? And so when there is a perceived threat, so you believe that you are in danger, there is a signal sent to your amygdala, a part of the brain that plays an important part of processing fear and other emotions. And so, again, you’re in an organization and you believe that there’s a bomb, your amygdala, again, your amygdala is not thinking, I wonder if there’s a bomb! I wonder, you know, what it’s doing is is sending a message to your organs in your body. Again, that’s when your your heart’s racing. Your blood pressure is going up. That’s when when I mentioned you get thirsty because your body is preparing to either run, you’re the fight or flight response. So it’s very interesting, again, when you think about a perceived threat because your body feels all those things just as if someone was really there and it’s always what could happen to someone that’s been an event like that when they go home, you know, they go home at the end of the night and again, they’re processing. They’re thinking about what happened and think about if your brain is in this place of but I’m okay. It really didn’t happen. But your body is absolutely exhausted because it just went through this whole fight or flight response. And then you go home and you are just exhausted and now your brain is thinking through it all. And and again, that’s when you know, cognitively. But I’m okay. Nothing happened. And how that alone could be traumatic because your brain and your body felt it all. But you’re, you know, cognitively you know that you are. Okay.

00;28;48;18 – 00;29;02;29
Rick Hoaglund
So, Jill, what are some of the other symptoms that you would need to be watching out for either in yourself or someone you’re watching out for, someone that is telling you about that they’d been through this wiring event? What are some of those symptoms that mean that you’re going through some trauma?

00;29;03;06 – 00;30;17;26
Jill Sanchez
So I always think about it or typically with trauma or even like any emotional reaction is sort of broken down into these buckets. So the emotional piece as so right after an event like this, it would be normal to be experiencing anxiety, some sadness, some worry, because you’ve gone through this event that you felt very helpless. But you also, as we mentioned earlier, we might not be it. If you’re not eating, not sleeping, you feel exhausted, but then moving into cognitive. So cognitive would be, you know, your concentrations affected, your short term memory, things like that. And then lastly, behaviors. So someone that’s drinking excessively or maybe you’re overeating are not eating at all. And so those are the the emotional, physical, cognitive and behavioral are the four different kind of pillars of how we experience an event like that. And those would be the things to be paying attention to. So if any of those areas weeks later, those symptoms are not improving again, that’s when as a parent or a loved one, you’d really want to pay attention to that and, you know, want to probably get connected to additional health.

00;30;18;08 – 00;30;21;27
Rick Hoaglund
Jill, thank you for joining us today and sharing with our listeners.

00;30;21;29 – 00;30;24;05
Jill Sanchez
Thank you! I appreciate it, Rick!

00;30;24;08 – 00;32;48;06
Rick Hoaglund
Let’s talk for a moment about how to prevent swatting. Let’s talk about schools. Schools should implement a strong emergency response plan. They should have this emergency response plan in place. And it outlines procedures for dealing with emergency situations, including swatting. They should train their staff and their students on this emergency response plan and how to also respond to a swatting incident. It should cover procedures for reporting suspicious activity, identifying swatting calls and following this emergency response plan, increasing security measures. They should consider these measures to deter swatting incidents such as installing surveillance cameras, implementing access control and hiring security personnel, verifying emergency calls. There should be a procedure in place to verify that the emergency call before they’re actually responding to them. For example, they may required a password or other identifying information to verify the legitimacy of the call. They also should work with law enforcement. School should establish a good relationship with the local law enforcement and inform them of what their emergency response plan contains. Businesses and churches are also targets in some cases, Swatters may target businesses in order to disrupt operations or to cause financial harm. For example, a swatter may falsely report a hostage situation or an active shooter at a business. This causes the business to shut down temporarily, and it results in lost revenue. In addition to what we’ve talked about for the schools, businesses can also take steps to increase their security measures. This would include surveillance cameras, implementing access control and, of course, working with local law enforcement to establish a relationship, ensuring that each of them know their emergency response plan very well. By taking these measures, businesses can reduce the risk of swatting and ensure the safety of their employees and their customers. To hear other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website, Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia, and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m Rick Hoaglund – thanks for listening to OnTopic with Empathia!