Officer says finding source of Pa. swatting calls will be 'extremely difficult'

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The active shooter hoax seen across the state Tuesday resulted in fear, confusion and a waste of law enforcement assets. Now the investigation into who sent those computer-generated swatting calls begins. 

According to one police officer who has dealt with cybercrime significantly, law enforcement has its work cut out for them. 

"It's extremely difficult," said Jackson Township Police Chief Terry Seilhamer.

Investigators say Tuesday's incident shifted to phone lines only after it began online, and that's where they'll look first.

"If you start backtracking and getting the IP addresses, you can very well find out somewhere over in central Europe or South America," Seilhamer said.

Unfortunately, given past practice, those who take part in something like that already have their guard set up.

"They try to mask the phone number and the IP addresses, they use VPNs," Seilhamer said. 

"There are all sorts of ways they can disguise where the transmission is actually coming from."

An investigation on this level will involve the Pittsburgh police but the main agencies usually charged with solving these kinds of crimes are out of Harrisburg and Washington D.C.

"Certainly we'd like to see state charges," said Acting Police Chief Thomas Stangrecki. "If we're able to work in federal charges, we'd talk to our U.S. attorney's office and the FBI."

The big question is why would anyone do something like this? What do they gain?

"I think generally it's an attempt to just satisfy their egos and cause as much chaos as possible and based on today's events they were pretty successful in doing that," Seilhamer said.

If investigators are able to find those responsible for what happened, they face up to five years in jail and a 5,000 fine on the federal level.