Powerlessness Drives ‘Cranks’ Who Make Bomb Threats

Think of them as 35-cent terrorists. When tragedy strikes, they head for pay phones and call in fake bomb threats. By the scores.

In the wake of Sept. 11’s terrorist attacks, cities around the world were deluged with hoax bomb threats at airports, skyscrapers, schools and other landmarks. New York City alone fielded more than 100 telephone threats shortly after the suicide attacks, fueling panic and disrupting rescue efforts.

It’s not a new phenomenon. After the Columbine school massacre in 1999, U.S. schools reported nearly 5,000 bomb threats over a six-month period, according to the National School Safety Center. And in 1993, New York City logged 364 phony bomb calls in a four-day stretch after the World Trade Center bombing.

Who are these callers and what are their motives? The answers vary, but “if you put a thousand of them in a room, some patterns would emerge,” says Park Dietz, a Newport Beach psychiatrist who has testified at numerous trials and is considered an expert on the criminal mind.

The vast majority are believed to be juveniles, jail inmates, disgruntled workers or students trying to avoid exams, Dietz says.

Most are males, some are mentally ill and some are seemingly ordinary citizens who take advantage of a situation for idiosyncratic personal reasons, such as the mother who needed to leave work early to take care of her grandfather and asked her son to call in a bomb threat to the office, Dietz says.

But the most common denominator among hoaxers seems to be a feeling of powerlessness, Dietz says.

Gregg O. McCrary, a retired FBI agent who ran the bureau’s behavioral science lab, agrees. “These people make threats primarily for the thrill of it, for the sense of control and power they get from being able to evacuate a building,” he says. “They’re the cranks and losers in life.”

Typically, the threats are empty. Only about 3% of bomb calls are backed up by actual bombs, McCrary says. “Real bombers rarely make threats. They try to conceal their plans,” he says. Conversely, “those who do make threats usually don’t bomb.”

A notable exception is the Irish Republican Army. “When they issue a threat, you can bank on it being real,” McCrary says.

But even empty threats wreak havoc. In addition to spreading fear and anxiety, they hamper authorities from dealing with legitimate matters. For example, if police get 50 bomb threats, “it’s difficult to determine if somewhere in that haystack there might be a true needle,” Dietz says.

During the 1970s, prank bomb threats were so common in Ireland and Britain that IRA and Protestant militants had to start using code words when phoning in warnings so authorities would know which ones to take seriously.

In the U.S., which lacks such a terrorist etiquette system, phony bomb calls are harder to discern, especially when they come on the heels of a widely publicized act of violence. “Callers know they have more power after such an event because people take it more seriously,” says Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles psychologist.

The number of threats rises in proportion to the amount of publicity, Dietz says. And the effect often lasts weeks. The same thing happened with product-tampering cases in the 1980s, he says: “A study by the FDA showed that for every saturation-level news story, there would be 30 new crimes,” some real, most hoaxes.

True to form, last week’s attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon prompted a flurry of new threats, some directed at mosques and other buildings. In the case of threats against Arab Americans, powerlessness is again a central factor, says Dietz. The calls are most likely from angry young men who want to do some thing to avenge what happened.

Of course, not all bomb pranks are sparked by news events. Some are inspired by pending school exams. “At colleges, when tests are being given, we get bomb calls fairly often,” says Robert Ziller, a University of Florida psychology professor.

Likewise, many post-Columbine bomb threats were seen as attempts to get classes canceled. One solution to such pranks, officials say, is to warn students that lessons will be taught at another location until the scare is over. That removes the main incentive for making bomb threats.

Another is harsher punishment. San Antonio, Texas, prosecuted 50 hoaxers in court after Columbine, says Ronald Stephens, director of the National School Safety Center. And some states have stiffened jail sentences and fines for fake bomb threats.

Businesses, which can lose tens of thousands of dollars during evacuations, are also trying crackdowns. McCrary, who now runs a Virginia consulting firm, advised one bomb threat-beset corporation to dock employees’ pay during evacuations. The culprit was quickly turned in, he says.

But putting the brakes on threats that follow terrorist attacks is much tougher. Unless a perpetrator uses a home or cell phone--and a few do--such calls remain difficult to stop.

Or to ignore. Says McCrary: “If you don’t react and you’ve actually got a bomb, how could you live with yourself?”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.