Safer Schools

One place to find the supporting data on swatting & school threats

Reporters and researchers are welcome to use our data and the independent sources below. For interviews or custom pulls, contact us.

Under-reported story angle: the mental-health cost to students is the single largest — and least-counted — cost of a school threat, and so is the lost instructional time. Most coverage tallies the police response but leaves both out. We can provide per-student and statewide figures on request.

Our data (primary sources)

• Annual School Threat Impact Report 2024–2025 — taxpayer cost, students exposed, methodology
• School Threats by State — % of students exposed and cost, all 50 states (searchable)
• School Threats by Congressional District — all 437 districts (searchable)

The threat landscape (independent sources)

• Just Security — Swatting Attacks and Nihilistic Violent Extremism: A Primer (764, The Com, O9A; members aged 11–25)
• WIRED — inside the 764 / “The Com” predator network
• ABC News — FBI investigations into the violent online network “764”
• France 24 / Financial Times — Russian services recruiting and grooming teenagers for sabotage (Europol)
• KMBC — swatting group “Kitty Mafia” suspected in Kansas City airport bomb threat
• CEMIR — trans-national threat actors generating swatting and hoax threats
• The Wall Street Journal — Russia’s “hybrid war” bomb threats against Ukraine

Published research

Bernhardt, A. E., & Beeler, D. E. (2026). The Impact of Threats of Violence on Communities: Examining Swatting and Related Costs and Risks. In J. F. Albrecht & G. den Heyer (Eds.), Policing, Violence, and Society: Psychological, Criminological and Global Perspectives (Ch. 3, pp. 31–49). Springer Nature Switzerland. ISBN 978-3-032-18084-1. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-18085-8_3