A call to dispatchers Wednesday morning claiming there was an active shooter and multiple casualties at Keaau High School turned out to be a hoax.
The response by police and firefighters to the sham call, however, was no laughing matter.
“We absolutely took this 100% serious. The information that we received was very detailed,” said Hawaii Police Department Capt. Rio Amon-Wilkins of the Hilo Criminal Investigation Division.
The call, which came in at 10:01 a.m., alleged there was a Caucasian male on campus with a firearm who had shot multiple students in a classroom and was now roaming the campus.
“And the initial information that we got was that it actually was at Hilo High School. It’s close to the station, so Hilo Patrol responded and CID personnel started heading that way,” Amon-Wilkins said.
Several Hilo High School parents posted on social media that the Hilo campus was also briefly locked down based on the initial information.
Another call from dispatch told officers the alleged campus shooter was actually at Keaau High, so responders reversed their course.
Amon-Wilkins estimated that 30 to 40 officers responded to the Keaau campus, which was locked down by school administrators until the all-clear was given shortly 11 a.m.
According to Amon-Wilkins, the response included the Special Response Team, the department’s SWAT unit.
“The response time was very quick,” Amon-Wilkins said. “Thankfully, we had a fair amount of (police) personnel in Keaau at the time working on something else, so they were able to get away and head over there.
“With all the personnel that we had, we conducted a methodical search of the campus — even after school faculty told us that there was nothing going on there — to ensure the safety of everyone there. We methodically searched every building on the campus.”
Keaau High School Principal Dean Cevallos described the morning’s events as “such a strange situation.”
“We, of course, had no idea any of this transpired,” Cevallos said. “We’re at the school, and everything’s going smoothly. But all of a sudden, I get a call from dispatch, and they said, ‘Did you know that there’s a 911 call … and then proceeded to tell me about it. And I said ‘no.’
“I’m looking out my window, and the police are already here.”
Cevallos called the police response “incredible.”
“Our police force was so on top of it, and I’m so thankful for them,” he said. “They took it seriously, they came on campus, and they were ready to act and do whatever was needed to keep the school safe.”
At 10:41 a.m., Cevallos sent parents a text message through an app called Talking Points. The message read, in part: “The police came to campus and asked us to have the students do a shooter in place drill to make sure the campus was clear. We have done that. There was no shooter on campus. This seems to be a prank call from an unknown entity. Your children are all safe and secure.”
Cevallos said the school has found the app — which allows schools to communicate with families in their home language — to be a useful tool.
Once police completed a systematic search of the campus and no threats were found, the school and surrounding areas were opened up around 10:57 a.m.
While Cevallos is grateful for the response by authorities, he’s “fairly upset” about the “inappropriate use of technology” by the prankster.
“My understanding is that there seems to be a TikTok going on challenging kids to do this,” he said. “I do wish our (youth) would be more respectful and more responsible with their technology use.”
Police have classified the incident as first-degree terroristic threatening, a Class C felony, and are investigating.
Anyone with relevant information is asked to call the police department’s non-emergency line at (808) 935-3311 or Crime Stoppers at (808) 961-8300.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.