According to an article by Mattison Gafner, between the dates of Aug. 21 and Aug.  25, there were at least 11 false active shooter reports on University campuses across the United States, one happening just two and a half hours away from UCA at the University of Arkansas. 

Since then there have been many more false reports and even a couple of actual school shootings in Minnesota and Colorado. 

There have even been false reports of active shootings off of school campuses recently like the multiple reports of shots fired at the northeast Arkansas district fair in Jonesboro this past Saturday, September 20th, that turned out to be false.

There are many theories circulating about why there has been an increase in false reports: boy who cried wolf tactic, to scope out police and university policy during these events, distracting law enforcement or to simply cause unrest on these campuses. 

According to an article from August 2025 by Megan Forrester from ABC, a retired NYPD chief of detectives said “these calls can range from a ‘simple prank’ to revenge, or even a pursuit of notoriety.”

After these reports started to come in, universities have been looking at their own alert systems for students.

Many universities have adopted a cyber alert system for its students: University of Arkansas, Texas A&M, The University of Central Arkansas, etc.

These universities send text messages and/or emails when there are security or weather concerns to every student, and oftentimes even the parents of students that are enrolled. 

In the instance of a real active shooter situation this is a valuable resource to have, it shortens time that students are unaware and they are able to hide themselves more quickly. 

A majority of the campuses that have been affected by these hoaxes have these systems in place. 

The University of South Carolina (USC) was one of the campuses that experienced a false report and their alleged school shooter was a student who was walking around with a black umbrella. 

Universities are now alerting students earlier due to the mediated forms of alerts and this allows for students to reach safety faster than they used to. 

Even when the reports of shooters are false the students, student’s families, staff and law enforcement do not know that in the moment. 

The same drills they would use for a real shooter still go into effect when an alert is issued. Students report feeling emotional distress after these fake shooting events.

According to an article from Aug. 2025 by Andrew DeMillo and Heather Hollingsworth from LPM “fear can linger for days or even weeks after the event.” 

These false reports of shootings can put innocent people at risk. According to DeMillo and Hollingsworth “In 2017 … a police officer in Wichita, Kansas shot and killed a man [who was innocent] while responding to a hoax emergency call.”