As swatting continues to vex New Jersey law enforcement agencies and shut down or evacuate schools, malls and hospitals, experts say it's a relatively easy criminal prank to learn and pull off.

Catching someone is the hard part and will likely take a lot time and a lot of investigating.

On Monday, the incidents continued.

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and schools in Princeton, Cresskill and West Milford were victims of hoax calls suspected to be swatting.

Experts say swatting presents a multitude of issues for law enforcement on all levels, from responding to them, investigating them, and deterring them in the future.

The type of spree affecting New Jersey this year is likely to be halted only by an aggressive investigative attack by a large agency, like the FBI. And if they charge someone, the tables need to be turned and the case highly publicized as an example to others.

Last week, the FBI in New Jersey said they are assisting local law enforcement in investigating various swatting incidents, but would not discuss specifics.

Also helpful would be a layer of increased penalties through legislation and more public awareness on how costly it is to public safety.

"It's a sad part of our current social trend, but hopefully something that can be stopped as much as possible," said Christopher Carver, a director at the National Emergency Number Association, which seeks to strengthen the 911 system.

Carver is a former director of fire dispatch operations at the Fire Department of New York and said through a multifaceted approach, New York was able to reduce drastically the number of false alarms and hoaxes through manual call boxes on their city streets.

"If New York City can reduce their false alarms, then I am certain this can be reduced somewhat as well," Carver said.

THE CALLS

Many police agencies have reported that swatting calls were made with disguised or computer-generated voices. That is just voice masking, and again, easily done.

How the calls are made is the issue.

"They're not calling 911," said Mark Fletcher, chief architect for public-safety solutions at the telecommunications company Avaya, said of most swatting calls.

Fletcher, a New Jersey resident who worked as a dispatcher in the 1980s, said there are a number of ways to call an agency that answers 911 calls.

It's very easy to dial your police department's 10-digit non-emergency number, or make a call to an agency's administrative lines, and with simple spoofing technology available online, a caller can easily mask their phone number that appears on a dispatching computer screen.

Last year, the FBI in Connecticut charged a young man with making several swatting calls and court documents show he and a group of swatters used Skype to make the calls.

There's even a way to access emergency dispatchers using TTD/TTY systems used by the deaf, which most 911 call taking centers have.

Making a masked call directly into a 911 system, though, is harder, "But not impossible," Fletcher said.

Someone looking for the technology will find it online, he said. "I would not even say they need a lot of drive to do it. Just 10 minutes, and that's it."

Fletcher said what investigators need is a really good tip from someone involved. "Someone is going to have to squeal," Fletcher said.

The data to trace swatting calls is out there, but investigators need a starting point. "Without it, there's millions and millions of access points."

It's kind of like having a criminal's fingerprint from a crime scene, but the person has never been fingerprinted and therefore their prints are not in any database.

In such a case, police would need another angle.

Without some sort of indicator to start a swatting investigation, "You're going to be looking forever," Fletcher said.

The next challenge is tracking the information back to the perpetrator, Fletcher said. "It's gonna take a lot of paperwork and a lot of courts to get the data."

Fletcher also believes a major agency would have to get involved.

"Local police, there's no way they're going to have the time, effort, or technology," Fletcher said. "They have got other things to solve."

INVESTIGATING THEM

Kevin Kolbye, former Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Dallas and current Assistant Police Chief in Arlington, Texas, said swatting is not usually something that a state law enforcement agency can tackle either.

"They tend to have more pressing violent crime issues," Kolbye said.

It also happens in the federal agencies too. "This also gets pushed down on the priority list as we are fighting violent crime, terrorism and other cyber crimes."

And in general, Kolbye said, there just haven't been a large number of swatting investigations.

"This is a kind of a vulnerability in our law enforcement environment, Kolbye said.

While at the FBI in Dallas, his office brought charges against several people in 2008 for a years-long campaign of swatting and other hoax calls in Texas.

In 2009, the ringleader, Matthew Weigman, then just 19 years old, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison.

Weigman was not only a prolific swatter, but a very good hacker too.

The FBI published a news story about the case to their website, which said in part: "Weigman's first swatting incident occurred in 2004 when he was 14 years old. When a girl he met through an online chat room refused to have phone sex with him, he retaliated by swatting the girl and her father, convincing a 911 operator he was holding the two at gunpoint in their Colorado home, which prompted a SWAT response."

Kolbye said although this type of investigation typically takes 18 to 24 months, his office was committed to it and they found the federal laws to apply to the hoax crimes.

"We had a very aggressive cyber team and a very aggressive cyber prosecutor," Kolbye said. "We had tenacious investigators who locked onto him."

Kolbye said along the way investigators learned about the personas of who the suspects were, and they were indeed part of the gaming world subculture.

"The majority are younger kids, social misfits, gamers, and they are doing it with other gamers, " Kolbye said.

IS IT CYBER TERRORISM?

Some law enforcement agencies have expressed concern that someone or a group is making swatting calls to test and observe SWAT teams and other police resources at swatting calls.

Kolbye said he does not see a terrorism link, but said it's possible, since one of the goals of terrorism is to create fear.

"As soon as you develop a new crime wave or phenomenon, (terrorists) are willing to exploit it." Kolbye said. He sees terrorists may be swatting as a fear tactic against a nation.

Michael Vatis agrees. "I think it's possible that they would engage in testing response."

Vatis, a lawyer at Steptoe & Johnson in New York and a former deputy director of the Executive Office for National Security in the Justice Department said in Israel they have the two bomb scenario: one bomb to kill and a second one to strike at first responders.

"Targeting law enforcement is real," Vatis said. "You can envision the scenarios."

But Vatis said: "I have no information that that is what we're experiencing at all."

"That does not mean that this is not serious, it's obviously a tremendous strain on resources." said Vatis, who also ran the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI.

Vatis said he believes law enforcement is appropriately taking each case seriously and what's needed is a highly publicized conviction that serves as a message to others.

"It seems like this is going off the charts," Vatis said.

Vatis added that it would be unfortunate to see that happen to a young person, but going in on the premise that swatters are young people, "There needs to be deterrents."

Other than prosecution, Vatis is unsure if the message will get through to swatters.

He also said the justice system could get creative and consider a serious financial penalty, "That someone would have to work off for a very long time."

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njtimes.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.