Bomb Threat Sent From Student's Email

A message sent from a Columbia student’s e-mail address earlier today in which he claimed to have intercepted a bomb threat is being investigated jointly by several agencies, including the New York Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security.

The message, sent from a public computer terminal, read, “Please contact someone fast. I just intercepted a message that someone will blow up Florida Airport.”

The e-mail then gave a Jupiter, Fla., address and phone number for “the person doing the blowing up.”

Several calls placed to that number were not answered.

The student, whose name Spectator is withholding at his request, said he did not send the e-mails and that he had spent a “frustrating” day working with the various officials, who also confiscated his computer and interrogated his suitemates. The student said he noticed the e-mails, which were sent to people in his address book, at about 1:45 p.m., and that he immediately called 911.

The student said the e-mails were all sent between 1:22 p.m. and 1:36 p.m., which the police reports corroborated. He added that one of the e-mails was sent to a government address, and that the e-mail offered more specific information.

The student said he suspected the e-mails were sent when he checked his e-mail at a public computer terminal in Dodge Fitness Center. He said that while he had reset the computer terminal, he had not signed off his Gmail account. He also said the agents spoke of the possibility that his e-mail account was hacked into.

“I don’t exactly know how this person got onto my account,” he said. “It is worrisome. I don’t know if that’s how they got into my Gmail.”

Although the NYPD responded to his call and brought more agents to his East Campus dorm within the hour, officers at the Jupiter Police Department said around 4:30 p.m. they had not been notified about the e-mail. Later last night, an officer said that the JPD is working with the other agencies and will not send officers to the home address listed in the e-mail without their presence.

The student said he was not treated as a suspect but that he was worried about the time he had lost to work on his thesis. “I have two tests tomorrow. I have to study,” he said. “It’s been frustrating, it’s been all-consuming.”

But he said the agents had been “very nice” and said it might have been a “positive” incident. “Maybe we saved someone today,” he said.

Messages left around 5 p.m. with the state homeland security public information office were not returned. University spokesman Robert Hornsby confirmed that an investigation is underway but did not comment further on the matter.

The reporters of this article can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.