The Scottsdale Police Department is sharing information with our community about an arrest related to telephonic threats made to multiple locations, including several Scottsdale schools and businesses, on April 8th and April 11th, 2022. On April 12th, 2022, a teenage male was arrested by law enforcement in the United Kingdom for his involvement in calling in several threats claiming he was armed with a firearm and was going to “shoot up” a certain school or on his way to a certain school.
Each threat was taken seriously, investigated thoroughly, and no credible threat was found on the school campuses or other locations. The initial threats on April 8th did cause some schools to go into temporary lockdown until the threats could be confirmed as false. Detectives began tracking the numerous threats and working on locating the origin and suspect information. Additional threats on April 11th appeared to share a common origin with the previous incidents.
The Scottsdale Schools that were affected were: Scottsdale Preparatory Academy, Notre Dame Preparatory Academy, Scottsdale Unified School District Office, Pima Traditional School, Hohokam Elementary, Cheyenne Traditional School, and Cochise Elementary.
Scottsdale Businesses that were affected were: Tommy V’s, OHSO Distillery, and Desert Schools Federal Credit Union.
Scottsdale Police detectives worked with the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Phoenix and HSI in London to track down the individual near Manchester, England. He was arrested by United Kingdom law enforcement on April 12th for several offenses stemming from the numerous “swatting” calls he made to Scottsdale schools, other valley schools, and businesses over the past several days. He is also accused of possessing indecent images of children and distributing them across the internet. He will remain in the United Kingdom and go through the justice system there.
We would like to thank our law enforcement partners with HSI Phoenix, HSI London, and the United Kingdom law enforcement who assisted with locating and arresting this suspect. Scottsdale Police would like to remind our community that making threats of violence against, individuals, businesses, and school facilities are serious crimes, and they will be investigated.
###
