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Managing Editor
Last week Fredonians faced a scare normally seen through a television screen on the news — a bomb threat.
At approximately 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29, members of the campus received an email alerting them to “a potential emergency in the Dods Hall [vi]cinity.”
The scene that University Police (UP) came across after a student’s report was an immediate red flag.
“[The student] had gone to his car and opened the car door and saw that his floor mat on the drivers side had been disturbed,” said Ann Burns, chief of University Police. “He saw a wire that he had not seen before, or noticed, and he heard a ticking, a loud ticking sound.”
As soon as there was visual confirmation of the student’s report, UP closed off the parking lot and called the sheriff’s department for their bomb squad.
“It was the trifecta,” said Burns. “The car mat had been visually moved, there was the wire, and then there was this loud ticking, so those three things — that’s enough … We take reports from students very seriously.”
Sophomore audio and radio production major Noah Maciejewski was on campus when he received the safety notice email. As Program Director of WDVL, he decided it was Fredonia Radio Systems’ duty to get the word out.
“When we received the email, I thought it would be important for us to say something for the sake of the community and the campus,” said Maciejewski.
Even though there was a show going on, the hosts willingly let Maciejewski interrupt their show to read the email over the air.
“If there really was a threat I thought it would be important for people’s safety that they would know if they were listening,” said Maciejewski.
After getting their equipment from half an hour away in Mayville, the sheriff’s department and bomb squad were on their way.
“I thought it was very quick arrival from the sheriff’s department … They brought the robot, which was fascinating, and they did a fantastic job,” said Burns. “They sent the robot to the car, the robot opened the door, looked into the [car], and one of the sheriff’s deputies suited up in the bomb suit to go take a closer look, and they just determined there was nothing there. They didn’t know where the ticking came from, but it was not a bomb.”
Two hours later, students and faculty were finally able to return to their cars and go about their night.
“We just weren’t going to take any chances with anybody’s safety, and when you do something like that there’s always a little inconvenience, [but] we had tremendous cooperation from everyone on campus,” said Burns.
Being inconvenienced was the least of their worries. Safety was number one.
“I definitely feel safe in Fredonia,” said Maciejewski. “I think the way that they handled it with informing everyone right away was very good … in the moment I think it was handled very well.”
Maciejewski was not the only student happy with the way UP dealt with the situation.
“We were thanked many, many times [that] night for taking something like this so seriously … I was very proud of the reaction from our students,” said Burns.