Campus Alert Archive
TXWES

A 9 a.m. Hoax Shelters a Small Fort Worth Campus in the Texas Swatting Wave

TXswattingemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed HoaxDetermined to be a hoax. The institutional response is documented because it reveals how the alert system performed under a perceived real threat.

Texas Wesleyan University, a small private campus in Fort Worth, issued a shelter-in-place order on April 13, 2023, after receiving a false active-shooter threat, one of at least eight Texas colleges swatted that morning. The university received the false threat just after 9 a.m. CDT and sent students a text alert to shelter in place. Fort Worth police responded and cleared buildings, finding no evidence of an emergency; the call was traced to a scam number.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
—
Injured
—
Institution
Texas Wesleyan University
Private Masters · TX
~2,500 studentsRamAlert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstruction162 chars
RamAlert: Shelter in place immediately due to a reported threat on campus. Lock doors, stay away from windows, and remain in place until you receive an all clear.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed wording; the exact Texas Wesleyan alert text could not be confirmed verbatim, but CBS Texas reported a shelter-in-place text was sent just after 9 a.m.
Texas Wesleyan was one of the earliest campuses hit that morning, before the cluster of late-morning calls to Del Mar, TJC, and others.
ALL CLEARSMS
Approximate reconstruction138 chars
RamAlert: All clear. Police have searched campus and found no threat. The reported emergency was a hoax. You may resume normal activities.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Reconstructed all-clear; this qualifies as a true all-clear because it lifts the shelter-in-place and confirms no threat was found.
Investigators said the call was placed by a scam number, consistent with the spoofed-origin swatting calls that hit other Texas campuses the same morning.
Context

Background

Texas Wesleyan University is a small private institution in Fort Worth's Polytechnic Heights neighborhood. On April 13, 2023, it was among at least eight Texas colleges and universities hit by hoax active-shooter calls in a coordinated swatting wave that also struck Collin College, Del Mar College, Tyler Junior College, Galen College of Nursing, Lamar Institute of Technology, Texas A&M, and Baylor. Texas Wesleyan received its false threat just after 9 a.m. CDT and texted students to shelter in place. Fort Worth police responded, cleared buildings, and found no evidence of an emergency; NBC 5 reported the call was placed from a scam number. The episode shows how the same hoax script targeted institutions of very different sizes, from large community-college districts down to a 2,500-student private university.
Analysis

Key Findings

Texas Wesleyan sheltered in place just after 9 a.m. CDT on April 13, 2023, one of the earliest campuses in the wave
Fort Worth police cleared buildings and found no threat; the call was traced to a scam number
The same hoax targeted at least eight Texas campuses of widely varying size that morning
Outcome
Fort Worth police cleared campus buildings and found no evidence of a threat. The call was determined to be a hoax placed from a scam number, and no injuries were reported.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    Collin College, Texas Wesleyan hit by apparent 'hoax' active shooter reports - CBS Texas
    cbsnews.com
  2. News
    Collin College Plano Campus, Texas Wesleyan University among several schools to get hoax mass shooting call - FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth
    fox4news.com
  3. News
    Texas Colleges Respond to Rash of Hoax Shooting Calls - NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
    nbcdfw.com
Tags
swattingactive-shooter-hoaxtexasprivate-universityfort-worthshelter-in-placeemergency-notificationconfirmed-hoax2023-texas-swatting-waveHoax
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion