MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.-- It's called "swatting" -- because when someone deliberately calls in a false threat to a school, business or home, a SWAT team is often called.
Making false threats is illegal but Senator Charles Schumer says it's on the rise, and he wants it to stop.
"When these attacks happen, law enforcement and SWAT teams don't find the real criminal, the person who initially made the call. What they find of course is terrified innocent residents even school children who are targets of the prankster,” said Schumer at a press conference in front of Maple Hill Elementary School in Middletown.
There have been three such instances in Orange County in the past month -- one in Newburgh and two in Middletown.
Less than two weeks ago, Maple Hill Elementary and Monhagen Middle Schools had false bomb threats just a day apart.
More than 1,300 students had to be evacuated from Monhagen.
"Unfortunately, inside our country, parents are seeing over and over examples of serious incidents in their schools. Every time we have a fake one, they see it as a real thing. It scares them to death, they panic and I understand those types of things,” explained superintendent of Middletown city school district Ken Eastwood.
That's why Schumer is introducing a bill that would toughen penalties for swatting. The bill would increase jail time for perpetrators, force them to pay restitution and close a loophole that makes it easier to commit those crimes over the internet.
Schumer says "swatting" not only terrifies students and parents, it costs police departments thousands of dollars.
"These swatting attacks are serious criminal acts in which our first responders use up their time energy and resources responding to false threats when they could have been elsewhere protecting the community from real ones,” said the senator.
Police have made no arrests in any of the three Orange County incidents.