FBI probes e-mailed threat at CMU
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An office building at Carnegie Mellon University was evacuated and searched yesterday in the latest of a series of bomb threats the FBI is investigating at prominent universities.
The e-mailed threat was the second at Carnegie Mellon since Aug. 24. It referenced Whitfield Hall and said a bomb also had been left in a brown paper bag in an unspecified outdoor campus location, according to an alert posted yesterday on the school's Web site.
The anonymous note arrived Saturday in a general administrative mailbox but was discovered only yesterday about 2:40 p.m. as employees sorted through Labor Day weekend messages, university spokesman Ken Walters said.
Campus police immediately cleared the building and searched it and outdoor public spaces. When nothing was found, the all clear was given at 4:40 p.m.
Carnegie Mellon said it has been contacted by the FBI, which is looking for links with other recent e-mailed threats. "We are cooperating with their investigation," Mr. Walters said.
Bill Crowley, a special agent with the FBI in Pittsburgh, confirmed yesterday that a probe of the threats nationally is under way and that yesterday's incident at Carnegie Mellon is included. He did not have additional details.
Within the last two weeks, threats have been received by public and private universities in several states, among them Oregon State University, Cornell University, American University's Washington College of Law, the University of Illinois at Chicago and Princeton University, according to Inside Higher Ed, an online news outlet.
In a scenario similar to the latest incident at Carnegie Mellon, someone sent a weekend threat electronically on Aug. 26 to Princeton via an inbox for general inquiries, Inside Higher Ed reported. The note was not discovered until the next day.
The threats come at a time when campuses have beefed up contingencies for notifying students and employees of emergencies in the aftermath of April's mass shooting at Virginia Tech.
The earlier threat at Carnegie Mellon on Aug. 24 involved Doherty Hall and Mellon Institute.
First Published September 5, 2007 12:00 am
