“It is important to note that the threats received in Springfield this week have not been substantiated and may be indicative of ‘swatting,’ " city officials said. “Swatting refers to the act of falsely reporting a serious emergency, such as a bomb threat, to provoke a large-scale law enforcement response.”
Springfield city officials and police said they are working with the Dayton office of the FBI “to thoroughly investigate and trace the origin of these threats.”
Mercy Health officials said the city of Springfield informed Springfield Regional Medical Center at 6:07 a.m. of an alleged bomb threat that had been received.
“Mercy Health immediately put the hospital on lockdown while local authorities conducted a thorough search of the facility, in conjunction with our onsite security team,” Mercy Health officials said. “Nothing was found within or outside the hospital and the threat was determined to be not credible. The hospital continued to operate during this time.”
The Kettering Health Springfield medical center at 2300 North Limestone St. in northern Springfield was also under a brief lockdown due to a bomb threat earlier Saturday morning, but that has also been lifted, according to Kettering Health officials.
They said they were notified of the threat around 6:50 a.m., and the lockdown lasted for about a half an hour.
“The Springfield Police Department alerted our security team that a bomb threat had been made toward Kettering Health Springfield,” representatives of the health network said, adding that police and Kettering Health security searched the premises and did not find anything suspicious.
Springfield Regional Medical Center is the full-service hospital on the west side of downtown Springfield. Kettering Health Springfield is a medical center that opened in 2022 at Limestone Street’s intersection with Home Road, on the site of a former Kroger store. It has an emergency department and many outpatient services.
The medical facility lockdowns follow on the heels of two days of Springfield school evacuations and bomb threats against city staff and buildings. According to Mayor Rob Rue, at least one of those threats came from someone claiming to be from Springfield, and mentioned frustration with the city related to Haitian immigration issues.
Both Kettering Health and Mercy Health credited their onsite teams as well as local law enforcement for a quick and effective response.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
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