Several schools across Pennsylvania were targeted by what authorities called a hoax active shooter call yesterday.
State police say the threats appeared to be computer-generated “swatting calls,” but they were all being taken seriously.
For WTAE reporter Marcie Cipriani, the story got personal after finding out one of the schools targeted was Oakland Catholic High School, where her daughter Eve is a student.
There were no reports of injuries and no active shooter was found at any of the schools.
Cipriani put her daughter on camera after finding out everything was OK to talk about what the experience was like.
“I mean, it was scary,” her daughter said. “All we’re hearing over the announcement is don’t move like you’re in lockdown and we have no updates so people are scared.”
Eve pointed out that the students were checking their phones and seeing twitter updates that were false.
Cipriani said when she spoke to her daughter she was whispering because, as her daughter said, “we can’t make a sound as they’re crying because we don’t want anybody to know where we are.”
She also said teachers were telling the kids what to do if a shooter finds them.
“I mean we were in a physics classroom, so (the teacher) is like there’s acid. If somebody came in, he was telling us like things that we could use to defend ourselves. Metal rods that were in the closet, chemicals that were all in the classroom. And he was promising us, he said, ‘I will keep you safe. I will do everything that i can to keep you guys safe.'”