A supposed active shooter report sent a wave of police to Milken Community School in Brentwood on Monday afternoon, locking down the private Jewish middle and high school before officers determined there was no actual danger. The Los Angeles Police Department says it now appears to have been a swatting call — a hoax report meant to trigger a massive emergency response.
LAPD said it received the call about a supposed active shooter at the school, located on Zeldins Way, around 1 p.m. Monday, according to ABC7 Los Angeles. The report set off a large law enforcement response at the campus and put students under lockdown while officers swept the grounds.
When officers arrived, they found no threat at the school, LAPD said, per the same report. Police now believe the call was a case of swatting, in which someone reports a fake emergency to 911, and said the investigation into who made the call remains ongoing.
A Scare for a Brentwood Campus
The false alarm caused a real scare for parents and students during the lockdown. Milken Community School describes itself as a private Jewish middle and high school, according to its website, cited in the same ABC7 account.
Federal Agencies Have Been Sounding the Alarm
The FBI's Dallas Field Office similarly flagged hoax threats and swatting incidents targeting schools during the 2025-2026 school year, issuing an advisory with guidance for parents and caregivers on talking to their children about the risk, according to the FBI. The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has also published a reference guide on anonymized threats that discusses threat assessment and detecting patterns, and recommends threat-response coordination and preparedness, including training, per the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Monday's incident in Brentwood is not an isolated example of the tactic playing out at a school. A similar hoax prompted a lockdown at schools in Hayward, where police said a false report claimed a shooting had occurred at Bret Harte Middle School around noon, according to Castro Valley, CA Patch. As with the Brentwood case, LAPD's investigation into who placed Monday's call remains ongoing.
