Belmont police have identified a teenager from Connecticut as a suspect in a swatting incident at Belmont High School on Monday.
In a release, Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac said a similar call was made to Belmont High School in Dayton, Ohio. Digital evidence links that call to the same Connecticut teen, according to the release.
Swatting is the false reporting of an emergency to public safety by a person with the intent of causing police to respond to a location where no emergency exists.
According to an email from Principal Isaac Taylor to the school community, the school received information Monday at around 1 p.m. via an anonymous tip line from a person claiming to be a student in possession of a firearm in a school bathroom.
“The police are treating this as a swatting incident, based on the information they received, but searching all bathrooms as a precaution,” he wrote on Monday.
In a subsequent email sent to families, Taylor said police searched all bathrooms and locked rooms and found no evidence of a threat. The school day returned to normal just before 2 p.m.
The Belmont Police worked with state and federal law enforcement to trace the source of the call.