Burbank High School Evacuated After Swatting Threat

Burbank High School was evacuated Wednesday afternoon after the campus received a phone call reporting a possible threat, triggering an immediate dismissal and a Burbank Police Department response. By early evening, police had cleared the campus and confirmed the call was a swatting incident.

Principal Steven Hubbell notified families by email shortly after the evacuation began, directing students and parents to coordinate pickup at the vacant Kmart parking lot adjacent to the school. Hubbell’s message cited the phone call and confirmed Burbank Police were already on campus working with school administration and district officials.

A second email from Hubbell arrived at 5:28 p.m., this time co-signed by Burbank Unified School District Interim Superintendent Oscar Macias. The update confirmed Burbank High had been declared safe.

“We are writing to share an important update and to confirm that Burbank High School has been declared safe and there are no threats to the campus,” Hubbell and Macias wrote.

Police determined the phone number used to report the threat had been spoofed. The school was the target of a swatting incident, a tactic in which someone places a false emergency report intended to provoke a large law enforcement response. Officers conducted a thorough sweep of the entire campus before issuing the all-clear.

Swatting incidents have become an increasingly common disruption at schools across the country, often timed to cause maximum chaos during the school day. They pull significant law enforcement resources, create serious distress for students and staff, and can pose real danger when large numbers of people are moved quickly off a campus.

Wednesday’s response drew officers to the Hollywood Way campus during what would have been the tail end of the school day. The coordination between school administration, district officials, and Burbank PD kept the situation from escalating further. Hubbell and Macias acknowledged the department directly in their follow-up email, crediting their “partnership, professionalism, and assistance in carefully inspecting the campus.”

For families scrambling to the Kmart lot to pick up students, the update came after what was likely a tense couple of hours. The school’s communication chain, pushing emails as the situation developed, gave parents real-time information rather than leaving them to piece together details from social media.

The district is asking anyone with information about who may have been involved to contact school administration or use one of three reporting channels: the BUSD Tip Line at (818) 729-4585, the dedicated email address [email protected], or the district’s online reporting system. All three are available around the clock for reporting safety concerns, misconduct, or well-being issues.

Swatting calls, even when quickly resolved, carry legal consequences. Placing a false emergency report is a crime under California law, and when the target is a school, prosecutors have pursued felony charges in similar cases elsewhere in the state. Whether Burbank Police or the district attorney’s office will pursue the investigation further was not addressed in the communications Hubbell and Macias sent Wednesday.

Burbank High serves roughly 2,400 students and sits on a campus that borders residential streets in central Burbank. A full evacuation affects not just students and staff but the surrounding neighborhoods, where emergency vehicles and hundreds of cars converging on pickup points create their own disruptions.

Wednesday’s incident closed out without injury and without a real threat. But the disruption was real, and the false report drained police resources and rattled a school community for hours. Hubbell and Macias both thanked families for their patience, and both made clear the district treats these reports seriously regardless of their origin.

Anyone with information can reach the BUSD Tip Line at (818) 729-4585 or submit a tip by email at [email protected].