The school shooting was a fake

Dennis Foulkes – A Teen Known for Hoax Calls, and a Case Study of a Newly-Crimined Interstate Threat

Dennis was horrified by how swattings have spread across the US. There has been no new villain who single-handedly represents the threat. There has been no shortage of nihilist troll willing to pick up where Tors Wats left off.

In a May interview with WIRED, he admitted that he had made hoax calls to garner attention and for political reasons. He said it was taking money that would have normally been used for welfare checks for Jews, bankers and billionaires, and was instead being spent on searching schools.

In November, just weeks after his 18th birthday, Filion pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his nationwide spree of swatting calls. He faces up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted of making interstate threats. As of mid-December, the teenager is awaiting sentencing in a Seminole County, Florida, jail cell.

WIRED reveals that the case against Torswats remains unresolved in the U.S., but it doesn’t matter how it hurts

Dennis remains in a different form of purgatory. On a recent night, when a WIRED reporter visited him, he went through his usual routine: he ate breakfast, checked his email for leads on work, played the video game Rocket League, and idled aimlessly around his apartment. He wore a loaded glock in a holster and had a round in the chamber for no safety. He drinks Red Bulls every two hours and works with his phone to keep his intake in check. He no longer gets visits from the squirrels. He can’t be sure, but he believes that his favorites—Jackie, Jesse, Alvin, Doug—have died of old age or been killed by other animals. Dennis does not have the desire to befriend new people.

On one of his nighttime drives through Seattle’s skid rows, he recently spotted an 11-year-old girl near a Krispy Kreme. She was seen from a poster of missing and exploited children. She thought he was a customer when she approached his car, but he helped police locate her, and she was connected with a foster family. He’s proud of that, just as he’s proud of having cracked the Torswats case. But he has received little recognition for either, from police agencies or the FBI. His paid work as a private eye has largely evaporated. He has sold off items in order to stay afloat, and he took up driving for the ride-sharing service. He says it has been the worst year he has ever had.

Dennis has no faith any of that will change. The US has many guns and the possibility of a mass shooting has become pervasive in the country. And American police remain a hair-trigger, militarized force ready to be exploited by anyone with modest technical skills and a convincing voice.

If Dennis is hopeful about anything, it’s that another high-profile case will come his way, one that will give him the same sense of purpose he felt during the Torswats investigation. As he drives through the dark, he hopes that another monster will appear for him to hunt, and that it will allow him a chance to repair his career and some part of the world.

“Things will happen that will change the course of your life,” he says from the driver’s seat of his Honda as he peers out of the windshield at the North Seattle streets. “Things will reveal themselves.”