The Good 5 Cent Cigar

Issue date: 3/4/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Christopher Barrett Director of Public Safety Robert Drapeau [far left] and Campus Police Maj. Stephen Baker [second from left] confer with EMS personnel during yesterday's bomb scare at Independence Hall.

Media Credit: Christopher Barrett Upper College Road was closed for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon because of the bomb scare.

03/04/08 - University officials evacuated Independence Hall shortly before noon yesterday after an unidentified female student reported overhearing two men saying they planted "something explosive" in the building.

Officials found no bomb and no one was injured during the scare that lasted about two hours and brought the Kingston Fire Department, Rhode Island State Bomb Squad and a State Police canine unit to the Kingston campus.

Assistant Vice President for Business Services J. Vernon Wyman said a woman in Bagelz called University Police at 11:04 a.m. after hearing two men discussing a plan to put "something explosive" in the building within the next two hours.

While not releasing the exact contents of the six-minute phone call, police said the woman gave a description of the suspects' clothing and backpack. Director of Public Safety Robert Drapeau described the call as "creditable and reasonable" and enough to warrant evacuating the building that houses the foreign language and English departments.

Before the evacuation, police spent roughly 15 minutes listening to recordings of the call and trying to contact the caller, university spokeswoman Linda Acciardo said. After several failed attempts, police decided to take action, dispatching officers and patrol cars to the building.

"Our first concern obviously was to get the areas identified and evacuated as soon as possible," Wyman said.

After evacuating Independence Hall at 11:45 a.m., the university's Department of Communications and Marketing began sending out messages via EmergencyAlert, the first of which were received at 12:02 p.m.

As a precaution, police blocked off the section of Upper College Road in front of Independence Hall and restricted all pedestrian and vehicle access. State Police sent extra cruisers to help secure the area.

Additionally, those in the Alumni Center, the Texas Instruments House and the International Engineering House, all across the street from Independence Hall, were asked to move to the rear of the buildings.

Officials also considered evacuating nearby Edwards Auditorium, but found classes were not being held in the building at the time of the threat.

After a room-by-room inspection, Independence Hall was cleared at 2:15 p.m. and classes resumed at 3 p.m.

Police continue in their attempts to locate the caller and the two men she described. Bagelz employees said the woman who made the call did not appear to be an employee.

At roughly the same time of the Independence evacuation, police responded to the University Library to investigate a suspicious backpack that turned out to be benign. Police did not evacuate the library.

Yesterday's events also offered the first real test of the university's EmergencyAlert system, launched in September after the shootings at Virginia Tech. The system alerted more than 8,000 subscribers with text messages, phone calls and e-mails that warned them to stay clear of the building.

Wyman said the attempt to warn subscribers through EmergencyAlert was 100 percent successful, and used multiple telephone lines to transmit the message.

Wyman said this was the third time the university has used the system designed by MIR3 and the first time the school has used it to warn students and faculty of a non-snow related emergency.

And although successful, "we're still at just over 50 percent [participation] on this system," Wyman said, adding many students have failed to subscribe to the system through e-Campus.

Wyman said the university's attempts to evacuate and inform students were a priority, "The seriousness should be noted," he said.

However, Justine Metro, an EmergencyAlert subscriber, said she found out about the evacuation long before being alerted by the system. Metro, who had class in the building at noon, said if it hadn't have been for her friend, she wouldn't have known there was a bomb scare on campus.

"I was a little shocked," she said. "The fire alarm was off, and then all of a sudden people were coming out of the building. I'm thinking there's a fire related thing."

Metro eventually received a phone call, but no text message or e-mail. She said she was not contacted until 2 p.m., hours after the evacuation.

Metro added that her mother received a message at home, and called to tell her daughter she was worried.

Senior Kayne Prestigiacomo said when she heard the fire alarm go off, she assumed it was a routine drill. The senior said she was finishing a paper in the Independence computer lab, when the teaching assistant instructed students to leave their belongings in the classroom, as they would probably be returning within the next few minutes.

However, Prestigiacomo found herself without her keys, wallet, or cell phone as she waited hours for police to search the building.

"I thought about grabbing my stuff, but they said we'd be back," Prestigiacomo said. "Now there's nothing they can do until the buildings cleared."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools