Lehighton area school district and several Lehigh Valley schools reported swatting incidents today, where a caller reported a false active shooter situation.

State police at Lehighton said the borough police department received a call at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday from a man with “a thick foreign accent” saying that there was a shooting at the high school and there were five victims in the bathroom.

Police said the call was made by computer.

The borough police contacted the on-duty police officer and dispatched additional officers. The report was false.

Police said the same male made calls to eight other districts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

David McAndrew, Panther Valley superintendent, said Panther Valley was not affected, but he sent a memo to his staff today, “This morning the school districts of Lehighton, Catasaqua, and Phillipsburg were “locked down.” Police departments in those school districts received calls saying there was active violence/gunfire within their school. Schools were searched and the police and school districts deemed it to be cases of ‘swatting.’ Swatting is an attempt to have multiple agencies respond to an incident which in fact did not occur. Further information provided was that this has occurred at several other locations within the Commonwealth and other states.

“Regardless of these types of calls and the people doing them, we are to remain vigilant and take them seriously until it could be determined otherwise,” McAndrew said, asking staff to continue to review the district’s emergency plans.

The Pennsylvania State Police Troop M Bethlehem Patrol Unit responded to Catasauqua High School, located at 2500 West Bullshead Road, Allen Township, Northampton County on Wednesday for a report of an active shooter within the school.

At 7:57 a.m., PSP Bethlehem received a phone call reporting there was an active shooter in Catasauqua High School and students had been shot. Multiple troopers from the Bethlehem and Fogelsville stations responded within minutes and cleared the school and determined that there was no shooter and the call was a hoax.

The Pennsylvania State Police Bethlehem Criminal Investigation Unit is the lead agency in the investigation and is being assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Catasauqua School Resource Officer.

Troopers will continue to have a visible presence at schools throughout the region for the remainder of the school year.