Deputies swarmed Douglas County High School in Castle Rock at 8:54 a.m. Tuesday, after a threat was called in against the campus, locking down the building and running an extensive search before determining the report was fabricated. Students, faculty and staff were confirmed safe once the all-clear was given.
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office said it secured the school facility and searched it top to bottom before lifting emergency procedures, according to a statement shared by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office on Facebook. The agency confirmed the threat report was unfounded and said it is now investigating to identify whoever is responsible for the fabricated call. As reported by the Denver Gazette, the sheriff's office completed a full physical check of the campus before deputies stood down.
Sheriff's officials said anyone who issues a fabricated threat like this one will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The department is asking anyone with information to call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867); tipsters can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward.
A Felony Under Colorado Law
Whoever made the call could face serious legal exposure. Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 23-249 into law in June 2023, making it a Class 6 felony to falsely report an active shooter or mass shooting in a public or private space, carrying up to 18 months in prison and fines as high as $100,000, per the same Denver Gazette account. Under Colorado Revised Statutes § 18-8-110 and § 18-8-111, general false reports to police are usually charged as misdemeanors, but the charge escalates to a felony when a false claim involves weapons, explosives, or active-shooter language that forces an evacuation or triggers emergency protocols, according to Justia Law.
Lawmakers created that felony specifically in response to a wave of hoaxes that hit Colorado campuses. In February 2023, a coordinated string of swatting calls targeted more than a dozen Colorado high schools across multiple counties in a single morning, triggering widespread lockdowns and heavy law enforcement deployments, KUNC reported at the time; many of those calls were later traced to automated internet calls originating out of state or overseas.
Rare but Costly Hoaxes
Even as false reports remain uncommon statewide, they carry an outsized cost. The Colorado Attorney General's Office reported in November 2025 that the state's Safe2Tell anonymous tip system logged a record 31,177 reports during the 2024–2025 school year, with intentionally false reports making up just 2.2% of all submissions, according to Safe2Tell's own data. Regional emergency management officials note that false threat calls still drain public safety resources, create severe emotional distress for students and parents, and risk accidental conflicts during high-stress emergency responses, as reported by Aspen Public Radio.
Nationally, the pattern is familiar. School safety monitoring data from October 2023 estimated that more than 500 schools across the country experienced swatting hoaxes over 12 months, with false active-shooter calls occurring roughly five times more often than actual school shootings in 2023, according to ZeroEyes. Investigators everywhere face a common obstacle in these cases: perpetrators frequently rely on Voice over IP routing, VPNs, or burner accounts to mask their identity, per Aspen Public Radio's reporting.
Largest SRO Unit in Colorado
Douglas County High School, founded in 1897 as the oldest high school in the Douglas County School District, serves roughly 1,650 to 1,770 students in grades 9 through 12 in Castle Rock. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office runs the largest School Resource Officer unit in the state, with 39 SROs backed in part by a $712,700 county funding allocation to keep dedicated officers across local public, charter, and private schools, according to Douglas County Government.
No injuries were reported, and the sheriff's office has not released further details on how the threat was made or what led investigators to determine it was fabricated. The case remains open as deputies work to identify who is responsible.
