Group Says It Has Ceased Bomb Threats on Campus (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

[alp227]

Source: New York Times

As students headed to final exams at the University of Pittsburgh this week, with many exhausted and frustrated by more than 100 bomb threats that have disrupted classes and emptied dorms, they were hoping there would be no further evacuations now that a group has announced its bomb threat campaign is over.

Calling itself the Threateners, the group claimed responsibility for dozens of bomb threats delivered by e-mail to Pittsburgh-area news outlets since March 30. Last weekend, in an open letter to the university’s chancellor, the group said it would stop if the university withdrew its $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the people behind the threats.

(...)

Officials said no threats had been received since Saturday morning, offering respite during the final week of school. Bomb-sniffing dogs had been on the scene since Feb. 13, when the first threat was found scribbled on a wall in a women’s restroom in a chemistry building.

(...)

In an interview, Katherine Anne McCloskey, 56, and Seamus Johnston, 22, said that F.B.I. agents showed up at their home last Wednesday in Cambria County and confiscated their computers.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/us/group-says-it-has-ceased-bomb-threats-at-university-of-pittsburgh.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Ian David]

1. Why were they making the threats in the first place? n/t

[Blue_Tires]

2. I know at some universities in past years, it was done more as a prank

and they usually had a habit of being called in the morning of that really big "Inorganic Spectroscopy" test, or something similar...

I've heard of some colleges where it became an unofficial school tradition for threats to be called in every semester for finals of certain difficult professors