Bomb threats have been prevalent all across the country during the last few weeks. The University of Texas at Austin coordinated a massive evacuation of its entire campus on Friday after a threat reportedly perpetrated by al-Qaida turned up false. A similar incident occurred just four days later at Louisiana State University. These are just a few of the many bomb threats phoned in across the country. Thankfully, all threats were unfounded and no lives have been endangered.
Two threats targeted locations on San Diego State’s campus in the latter half of 2012, which is a significant number considering there have been only three bomb threats on SDSU’s campus in the last four years, including the most recent two.
SDSU Police Department Capt. Lamine Secka said he’s confident the two incidents are unrelated, and couldn’t speculate about the significance of the sudden spike in bomb threats, both locally and around the country.
Although Secka has never responded to a bomb threat that proved legitimate, he said SDSUPD responds to every bomb threat with the utmost gravity.
“We investigate every (bomb threat) we get as fully as we can,” Secka said. “Because the first one we don’t take seriously, that’ll be the one that ends up being real.”
SDSUPD responded to a bomb threat at the U.S. Bank in West Commons in late August.
The threat was believed to have been called in by a disgruntled customer at a different U.S. Bank branch. This incident marked the first threat of an explosive being on campus since a suspicious-looking bag was left in the trolley station approximately a year and a half ago. More recently, someone called in a threat, saying explosives had been planted in the SDSU Transit Center. The call reportedly came from the phone booth directly above the underground trolley stop. SDSUPD currently has no leads on the person behind the call.
Protocol for bomb threats at SDSU begins with remaining as proactive as possible. Authorities say it is better to alert too many people rather than too few, and to be too cautious rather than risk being too lax.
Director of Media Relations and New Media Greg Block is part of SDSU’s administration charged with alerting everyone potentially endangered by a bomb threat, working closely with SDSUPD to alleviate some of their burdens during emergency situations. Secka said SDSUPD alerts the public to the best of its ability, but it also has to direct a lot of attention to the immediate threat at hand.
“We try to prioritize it as best we can,” Secka said. “(SDSU’s administration) takes that load of notification off our shoulders.”
Block and others at SDSU have seen a significant change in the way they are able to reach students in situations like these. They now utilize texting, email and Twitter, all of which can be accessed at a moment’s notice.
“I got a call from SDSUPD when we received the bomb threat at the trolley station,” Block said. “I sent texts out on my computer from my home and drove to campus. I got there 15 minutes later, and they had already cleared the area by then.”
While there was no danger in this situation, the ability to alert people of an emergency situation at the drop of a hat could save lives. Block urges students to go to SDSU’s website and register their cell phones with the police department’s database. Students won’t receive spam, just crime alerts and information on potentially dangerous situations. SDSUPD and SDSU NewsCenter also tweet during these situations and give frequent updates about their development.
