The Grant Police Department says a reported threat against Grant High School on Thursday is being classified as a swatting incident.
Around noon, the police department was notified that a third-party crisis intervention line was called by an unknown male claiming to be standing outside Grant High School with an AR-15 rifle.
Officers responded and placed all Grant Public Schools in lockdown. When officers arrived on the scene, they did not see the reported suspect.
Law enforcement conducted thorough searches of each school in the district and determined there was no threat. The lockdowns were then lifted.
Officials learned during their investigation that the call to the crisis line originated from an IP address outside the U.S. and at least 13 other schools in the country received the threat at the same time. The information in the calls was the same in each instance except for the name of the supposed suspect.
Grant Police Chief Jon Patterson says the incident is being classified as swatting and they are working with the FBI and Michigan Intelligence Operations Center to further investigate. Swatting is a hoax that is designed to provoke an emergency response to a fabricated threat.