CRIME

UD targeted in undisclosed threat of violence Monday

Xerxes Wilson, and robin brown
The News Journal

The FBI confirmed that the University of Delaware was the target of a threat of violence to have taken place on campus at 10 a.m. Monday. Federal investigators found the source of the threat not credible.

Campuses throughout the Philadelphia area were already on alert after federal officials on Sunday warned of a threat to take place on an unspecified campus at 2 p.m. Monday.

University of Delaware police officer Patrick McCloskey pulls his cruiser up onto the sidewalk on The Green on East Delaware Avenue in Newark on Oct. 5. The agency is reporting a sharp decline in crime.

The two threats were not connected, Amy J. Thoreson, an FBI public affairs specialist in Baltimore confirmed via email. Thoreson said she could not add any other detail other than confirmation the University of Delaware was the target.

University of Delaware Police Chief Patrick Ogden said his office received word of the threat on the online forum 4chan.org around 9 a.m. The post warned people to stay off the college campus if they were in northwestern Delaware. A reply to the post noted there will be hundreds of people on The Green at UD at 10 a.m., Ogden said, noting his office contacted the FBI when the post was brought to his attention.

Federal agents tracked the source of the UD threat to a teen in Ohio whom they found to have had no real intent or capability of carrying out any violence in Delaware, Ogden confirmed.

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The University of Delaware was among several local schools to send out a combination of text message, email or telephone warnings tied to the unspecified Philadelphia-area threat Sunday evening. A text message sent to students and employees Sunday evening said "no specific threat has been made to the University of Delaware."

Ogden said he decided against sending out an additional warning Monday morning when the UD-specific threat was discovered because there was already a heightened level of alert from Sunday.

"We felt like we already notified the community, and we already had resources in place," Ogden said. "When you have these types of anonymous and non-specific threats, you have to lay out how many times you send out an alert. You don't want to cry wolf and lose the public."

University of Delaware students cross the street at East Delaware Avenue on Monday afternoon.

Law enforcement officials said the Philadelphia-area threat was still under investigation Monday night and also originated from 4chan. The forum hosts often anonymous conversations and file sharing with subject matter ranging from politics to cat memes to porn.

“A fellow robot will take up arms against a university near Philadelphia. His cries will be heard, his victims will cower in fear, and the strength of the Union will decay more,” the post read.

Hannah Heuschneider, 20, a biomedical engineering major from Staten Island, New York, said she was taking the threat seriously and drew parallels between a 4chan post appearing to foreshadow the shooting deaths of nine people at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon on Thursday.

The shooter allegedly "posted 'Don't go to school in the Northwest,' and that was even more general" than the threat about a Philadelphia-area attack, Heuschneider said. Authorities have not confirmed the alleged Umpqua shooter was the source of that post, though it has been widely circulated online.

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Many UD students interviewed Monday said they weren't changing their routines or worrying because they didn't think the threat referred to a Delaware college.

"I haven't gone out of my way to avoid any particular place," student Joey Parlamenti said late Monday morning, "but I am taking it seriously."

After so many people were killed last week in Oregon, he said, "it's crazy that something like that could happen anywhere."

Brooke Schatzman, a junior from the Wilmington area, said after students voiced concerns about the specific time of 2 p.m. included in the threat, the professor of her class that meets at that time decided to teach Monday's class online instead of in the large lecture hall in which class is usually held.

After last week's mass murder, she said, "people are concerned."

"The fact [Umpqua] was a small, unknown school, that caused people to say, 'I haven't heard of that school. Maybe it could happen here.' When small schools see such a tragedy, people do relate to it," said Gary Wirt, president of Goldey-Beacom College in Pike Creek.

Wirt said the school informed students and employees as soon as they found out about the Philadelphia-area threat. He noted federal law requires notification of a threat to campus and the need to take everything seriously.

"To me it is like a bomb scare. You have to take everything seriously even though your best judgement says you might not have an imminent risk," Wirt said. "Unfortunately, we have to take all these things seriously."

University of Delaware police officer Patrick McCloskey walks with his 6-year-old German shepherd, Scout, along The Green in Newark on Monday afternoon.

In Dover, Delaware State University administrators “let our community know about it yesterday,” spokesman Carlos Holmes said late Monday afternoon.

“The threat was directed toward Philadelphia-area institutions of higher education,” he said. “I think as a matter of security courtesy, the FBI included New Jersey and Delaware in the distribution of that information.

At Wesley College in Dover, Director of Safety and Security Walt Beaupre said the college reached out to city police, who increased their "patrol presence in and around our campus," Beaupre said in a statement.

Contact robin brown at (302) 324-2856 or rbrown@delawareonline.com. Find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @rbrowndelaware. Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.​

University of Delaware students wait to cross Main St. Monday morning Newark.