A 911 call claiming an active shooter at Greenville’s St. Francis Eastside campus sent police, sheriff’s deputies and a fire truck to the hospital Tuesday morning — only for officials to determine the report was false. The hospital sent a critical alert to employees while authorities worked the call, according to Fox Carolina.
The building on the receiving end was not a soft target by accident. St. Francis Eastside is a 93-bed hospital on Commonwealth Drive offering emergency, surgical and maternity services, according to Bon Secours — departments where sheltering in place means something very different than it does in an office. A patient on a ventilator cannot run. A patient in active labor cannot hide.
Hospitals Have Become A Recurring Target
If Tuesday’s call proves deliberate, Greenville joins a list that has grown quickly this summer. On July 2, a caller told an emergency department staffer at Marshfield Medical Center in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, that two men were 20 minutes out and coming to shoot up the hospital; the building was locked down for roughly two hours, the caller used a voice changer, and no one was taken into custody, WEAU reported. Hospitals in Madison and La Crosse fielded similar calls the same day, and La Crosse police responded to another hoax at Emplify Health by Gundersen two days later. In October, Newport Beach police confirmed an active shooter report at Hoag Hospital was swatting.
South Carolina Has No Swatting Statute
That gap shapes what happens next. Prosecutors here fall back on the state’s false police report law, which caps a false felony report at five years and a $1,000 fine and leaves restitution to the judge’s discretion. A 2024 bill would have created a distinct swatting offense with graduated penalties reaching 10 years. Sponsors argued a false-report charge amounts to a slap on the wrist. The Post and Courier editorial board also published an editorial about swatting, according to the publication. The Council of State Governments also discusses state efforts to prevent political violence, per the Council of State Governments.
A Rough Stretch For Upstate Health Systems
The call landed on a region already absorbing unrelated disruptions. AnMed’s four Upstate locations lost phone and internet service on July 26 after a cybersecurity incident involving malware, with SLED and the FBI assisting, Fox Carolina reported. No official has connected the two…