GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — A round of hoax calls across the state left parents, police and schools districts on edge Thursday.
Now, 911 dispatch and a cyber security expert are weighing on these false active shooter calls that kept ringing their lines.
Guilford Metro 911 and Alamance County 911 were just two among many that received calls about active shooters at schools across the Triad.
The fake calls sound very similar. Dispatch along with law enforcement, and school officials say they believe the same people made these calls.
Guilford Metro 911 said they take every call very seriously and immediately dispatch law enforcement if there are any signs of potential danger.
"Dealing with swatting calls or calls such of that nature, of course, we’re gonna treat every call the same. We’re never [gonna] act like this can’t be real because we hear a lot of things, but we always want to air on the side of caution," Assistant Supervisor at Guilford Metro, Kimberly Burkley explained.
Burkley said tensions may be high at times, but they are trained for this.
"With everything that's going on absolutely, but I think with us in a room, it's kind of like you act with the training we've had. We've had a lot of training with everything that's going on in the country and around us we've had constant training," Burkley added.
Professor and Director of Center of Excellence, Hossein Sartafzadeh, said cyber security should be a shared task.
"I think there needs to be more partnerships between the schools. The research institutions like North Carolina A&T State University help, not just educate, but find better ways of preventing these hackers from achieving the goals," Sartafzadeh.
One thing that's important to note, Guilford Metro said when you do call 911, the person on the other line will be asking you a lot of questions.
That's in order to help you, help law enforcement and figure out as much information as they can before units arrive on the scene.