Submitted by polarbearrape t3_10wz7of in vermont
The Walmart just across from Brattleboro in Hinsdale got a bomb threat call, and apparently there are multiple calls on the scanner about "school shooter" threats on multiple schools? I believe BUHS either is or was in lockdown.
You don't even get paid enough without this shit...
for this shit
Fixed it for you.
The potential threat of school violence is one of the top 3 reasons I left the profession. (the others were money and frustration with admin)
I work for a VT school. We didn’t know anything about this until our superintendent emailed at 1:55pm!
Regular teaching positions should start at $75k a year.
I support this.
Do something else then
Maybe they should do one last job teaching you to read for comprehension
I don't get it :)
This is domestic terrorism. They are purposefully trying to instill fear in people, in kids. I know this is happening all over the country and they rarely get the people, but we need to figure out a way to stamp this shit out. It’s literally terrorism and we should treat it as such.
Terrorism, yes. But unless you know a VOIP call was initiated from the US vs abroad, you don't know if it's "domestic."
That's fair, but uh... I'd also bet the farm it's domestic 99% of the time.
Similar to the domestic terrorists who are shooting and trying to destroy our power grid.
Exactly. Right-wing domestic terrorism has been steadily rising since the 90s but folks still want to ignore it.
I have a friend in the federal government (a law enforcement division) who currently works out West. Of course he can’t discuss much, but he has commented that the situation is much worse than the public realizes. He has concerns that we are in a long term situation that will deteriorate much sooner than any of us realize. I hope he is wrong, but he is not prone to exaggeration.
I’ve heard the same. Lots of incidents aren’t making the news, either.
> Similar to the domestic terrorists who are shooting and trying to destroy our power grid.
Has there been any proof of who did that? I wouldn't put anything past rightoid yahoos, but I've only heard supposition so far. Maybe I missed something.
Which one? This is actually something that has been happening a lot but doesn’t often make the news. Going back a number of years too. And yes, we know it’s right-wing groups doing it. Sorry I don’t have sources at the moment but google can deliver some I’m sure.
> Which one?
Any of them, really. And yeah, I remember hearing about some in CA in the early 2010s.
The most I heard about the recent one down south (the Carolinas maybe?) was that someone tweeted something about not liking drag queen story hour around the same time as the substations were damaged. I just wondered if there was ever more of a connection than that. Shrug.
There have been multiple incidents even since the one in North Carolina. This is my point, there are incidents occurring that the majority of the population are completely unaware of. This isn’t even a right-wing media issue, everyone is ignoring this stuff.
Huh, that's really odd. The media doesn't usually miss a chance to present a story with an obvious red team/blue team angle, and this is teed right up for them. Anything but healthcare, I guess.
We don't know that, the mainstream news just says so
https://www.reuters.com/legal/fbi-arrest-two-including-neo-nazi-leader-plot-attack-baltimore-grid-2023-02-06/. There is this, it addresses one thwarted plan.
Huh, TIL. This whole thing feels like it glows, but time will tell.
Gets proof. Ignores proof. Blames the gov’t.
Sorry not the feds fault you’re dumb.
> Ignores proof.
I did say TIL.
> Blames the gov’t.
Sorry-not-sorry: the government's decades-long history of infiltrating and instigating right-wing groups in order to create fear and advance the interests of the ruling (billionaire) class has made me skeptical of the real threat posed by two yokels with a plan to "destroy [a huge city]". From Operation Gladio in Europe, to all the Muslim teenagers entrapped via fake plots during the GWB and Obama years, to the January 6 rubes being thoroughly infiltrated by provocateurs (3 of 4 top Proud Boy leaders were FBI agents or informants, the lead guy they just convicted had been working with the FBI for ~10 years, etc etc), the pattern is clear.
Every major anti-globalization protest in the early 2000s had violence instigated by federal and state provocateurs. I was in Montreal when some of us actually caught some police provocateurs. (The cops later admitted it). Now they mostly just use identity politics to derail the left: "we want healthcare for all!" "what about purple lesbians in wheelchairs! Medicare for All is racist!"
Here is a relevant article
It looks like this is happening all over the country and federal authorities are investigating. The calls are coming from (or being routed through Ethiopia). Everything I’ve read about this points to not domestic, but of course we don’t have all the details yet.
It’s very easy to make it look like you are somewhere else on the internet. The tools are actually free for anyone and lots of people do it for non-nefarious reasons.
The schools have a strong incentive to CYA - who would want to be the one who ignored the one-in-a-million real threat? - and no incentive to not scare kids needlessly. This in turn creates a strong incentive for every anon or crank with a 3-line python script to spam out these robocalls. It's the same reason swattings happen: no matter how many innocent people the cops shoot, or how many babies they severely burn in their cribs with flashbangs, they have the same incentive to CYA and act on every implausible, anonymous TTY message.
> but we need to figure out a way to stamp this shit out
Right on. Stopping automated phone calls, or just not accepting them as a pretense for lockdowns and SWAT raids would go along way. Just having to actually call, expose your caller ID, and speak (with your actual voice!) would stop 99.999% of cranks cold.
Longer term, we should seek to change the material conditions which breed the sort of bleak nihilists that call in bomb threats (or worse). That's unlikely to happen, because asking why people's lives are so precarious, lonely, alienated and hopeless that they'd act out anti-socially inevitably leads back to our cruel economic system, and profits for the billionaire-pedo-island-class must be preserved at all costs. Expect lots of band-aid approaches and blaming identity groups (men/Muslims/xyz category) instead.
There are already lots of easy ways to end call spoofing, we just need the government to enact them
As usual with this sort of thing, our government is about 10-20 years behind.
And who would you believe to be behind this?
They appear to be hoaxes. From VSP:
http://vtstatepolice.blogspot.com/2023/02/schools-across-vermont-receive-apparent.html
> MONTPELIER, Vermont (Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023) — Multiple law enforcement agencies across Vermont are receiving calls reporting shootings at local schools. At this time, none of these threats is believed to be credible, and the incidents appear to be hoaxes.
> The calls have been reported to originate from VOIP phone numbers or potentially spoofed 802 numbers and appear to be associated with ongoing nationwide hoax phone threats of school shootings, bomb threats, and other violent events that have proved to be unfounded.
> The Governor’s Office, Agency of Education, Department of Public Safety, Vermont State Police, Vermont Intelligence Center and local law-enforcement agencies are actively engaged in the response to these calls.
>Further information will be available at a news conference expected to be held later today at the Governor’s Ceremonial Office at the Statehouse in Montpelier. Details of the news conference will be released as soon as they are available.
We need a CAPTCHA process for phone calls these days. If you can't validate you're a real human being your call doesn't go through.
The best feature of my pixel phone is automated screening of calls. It automatically rejects spam calls. I can tap a button to have the Google robot ask for more details about why they're calling and never have to interact with an unknown caller.
I have a Pixel and I love the automated screening.
That’s neat I wasn’t aware that was an option.
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Same thing happened in Maine late last year. Couple high schools had to get cleared out by SWAT teams. It was absolutely terrifying. So weird that these people are targeting random rural states.
At least one school in Bennington first got a call about a bomb threat and then about an active shooter. Police said it was happening all over the state. Scary shit
Foreign countries probing our infrastructure most likely.
Or domestic terrorists probing our infrastructure. Probably more likely.
Funded by foreign countries
At this point, does foreign vs domestic distinction really matter?
Lot of places in downtown montpelier, including state offices and the high school, have locked down. Reportedly there was a robocall threat made, and it was all a hoax, hoping that is true and no one was injured or shot.
Just got the all clear call from the school superintendent - just a hoax, no shooter.
It was walmarts across the country yesterday
that is great
Just got done my shift at my local Walmart, we were told tons of them across the northeast have been getting threats over the phone like that, VT, NH, and MA at least. Luckily for us we didn't get one 👍
Same thing happened yesterday at the Berlin mall. Whole place was evacuated.
Must have been hard to tell the difference from a normal weekday.
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Not much to evacuate there….
I was one of those people!
Colchester is on lockdown too
colchester HS just had it too. stupid fucking moron hoax callers.
Locked down in the NEK right now
Otter Valley in Brandon too
It is a nationwide hoax. The Agency of Education and the State's counterterrorism force are on it.
I only see being reported the Vermont schools and a few New Hampshire Walmarts. That's today's threats at least, this isn't new to the country as a whole for sure.
i’m senior at montpelier high school. we just had a 1.5 hour lockdown and a bunch of armed cops storm the building as well as rumors of a shooter and two injured at the ER. some scary shit. fuck this country.
We got the call today also from the local school. Extremely unnerving, what would anyone have to gain by doing this?
Its either some idiot having "fun" or a domestic terrorist doing a test run to cause panic and keep police busy is my guess. This going out combined with the electric grid going down (they did test runs of that already by shooting sub stations) would basically shut the country down. Prime setup for a Jan.6 type event.
So unless there is a plan to go to war with the US military I don’t think it is a setup for a January 6th event. Domestic terrorists disable police with these robo calls, they then shoot up the power grid and then they?... do what.
Nothing they can do will change the laws in this country and at best they could prevent a transition or power for a day or two. If they already have the military on their side there is no reason to do these other shenanigans, they would just instigate a military coup.
I dont think it actually is either, more likely just a "spread fear" move. I doubt anything is actually gonna happen.
Rice got locked down, that was scary in the middle of geometry class
Gov released a statement earlier. Apparently it’s happening all across the state.
Saint Albans City school was one of them. They sent an email apparently it's a nationwide thing where police stations are getting hoax calls about school shootings. I hope they find whoever did and arrest them because shootings, especially school shootings are no joke
This isnt the first time, seen multiple schools including City school that received fake bomb threats a couple months back
This is a nationwide trend. Using algorithmic techniques along with basic investigations the calls are being traced back to African nations with ties to Russia. Do some googling in that direction you’ll find lots of mainstream coverage (eg not a tin foil hat conspiracy)
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I'm at work on state street and I was terrified until I heard from someone inside that they were ok.
Just a hoax, no one injured.
Walmart in Claremont and Littleton also got bomb threats.
Bunch of schools got the call, some went into the lockdown but here at Essex Highschool we didn’t bother even though we got a call because we know a thing a two cuz we’ve seen a thing or two. (We knew it was a hoax because of calls from other schools)
When I was in school in the 80's it happened many times at our school. Friggin PIA so stupid. Do something productive with your lives instead of disrupting people's lives like this. Love each other. Be kind friends and be safe.
i will never understand doing something like that hoax or real
My daughter called me from work crying because her little brother,my son goes to one of the affected schools. This shit needs to stop
I heard this story on NPR back in November. Apparently this has been happening nationwide, and in some cases, at least, the perpetrator is outside the US.
It’s been happening to dozens of schools around the country and the authorities are doing a piss-poor job of identifying the trend. Here’s a podcast episode from September that’s some of the only coverage to link the threats to one another.
Not just Vermont, but two schools in central Maine had to evacuate because of fake bomb threats just a couple weeks ago
Happened all over California yesterday too. Same hoax. It was nationwide.
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Oh, that's great. I have anxiety and I gotta go there to get my medication so that will be fun for my anxious brain. This is really good to know for my job though, so I don't take my clients there. Not sure why we haven't gotten a warning from work. Many of our clients go there all the time. This feels like something out staff should know about. Even though most are fake and it seems to have been a prank, my work should be taking this seriously. Thank you for posting about it.
This shit used to happen all the time when I was in school in the early 2000's. We got to end the school year 4 days early once because of a bomb threat.
I'm just surprised bfa Fairfax didn't get a call especially with how we had two guys checking the school out yesterday
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Wtf. Seriously. Just your everyday racism and sinophobia that happens in Vermont. Just blame China for when bad things happen. 😒
Edit: adding some context. The original commenter wanted to blame China.
China is not the first entity coming to mind for many of US I would wager. It reeks of domestic terrorism. Bunch of racist white boys that can't get any.
I still remember a news story from a couple months ago where a group of people sabotaged a power station and knocked out power to a few thousand people. The story got minimal coverage. Domestic terrorism needs to be taken more seriously.
The original commenter wanted to blame China.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people in America that can't distinguish between the facts and their opinions which they get from Fox News and other right-wing sites.
There was another one more recently. I thought they both got a fair amount of coverage, but I don't watch TV news.
Regardless of the intent, it will not take the aithorities long to find the device or devices used to make the calls.
I wonder if it’s a right wing diversion tactic so they can go after power grids or put things in place
Imagine that these calls were made during a severe disease outbreak, in winter, after a few real active shooters, and in the lead up to an EMP attack.
They proved they dont need an EMP. Couple rifle shots have been taking down the grid. It really does all feel like planning and practicing...
And after we are groomed to accept balloons flying over
I think we're worried about different things.
Every single state in the country puts up weather balloons every single day. When was the last time you saw one of those. Nobody ever looks up, and this is just proof of that.
> during a severe disease outbreak
Check
> in winter
Check
> after a few real active shooters
Check
I guess we can expect the EMP any time now?
Even an EMP would still be regional, it takes careful placement to cover an area as large as the CONUS. Any entity that wanted to do so would realistically need at least 2 and 3 would be best if they wanted to to hit the entire country at low altitudes.
Used to have bomb threats when I was in school.
Yeah, but everyone knew those weren't credible. No delinquent is going to apply themselves enough to make a bomb.
Pick up a firearm on a bad day, and tragically cut short the lives of fellow schoolchildren that's just too damn easy....
Ah, the good old days….
Right. Only had to worry about nuclear annihilation from Russia back then. And then congress actually had our backs.
Yup, duck and cover drills. They were the best…
Yup, who'd have thought that you were safe from radiation if you hid under a school desk! They must have been lead lined.
Right, just a big old brown bag a wires to get out of a biology test that, ultimately, Kevin failed anyway. (At least have the decency to leave a mystery package in the hallway after lunch so we can go home.)
You trying to normalize stupidity?
Settle down Francis…
This all happening while our fearless sleepy leader is tweeting about AR15 bans? They don’t even hide it. Little coincidental and tasteless to try and push another agenda through fear.
SevenSparrowsSing t1_j7px5gx wrote
This is your fellow Vermont educator commenting to say we truly don’t get paid enough for this shit.