An e-mailed bomb threat was received at USM’s School of Law in Portland on Monday, Feb. 19, giving the Critical Incident Response Team (CRIT) a chance to prove that new measures for handling these incidents adopted last year can work to better reduce the chaos caused by bomb threats.
The threat was first discovered by Kerry Wyler, program coordinator for admissions and career services at the School of Law. Wyler was checking e-mail at about 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 20, for the previous day. Monday was President’s Day and the offices had been closed for the holiday. The e-mail was received around noon on Feb. 19.
USM police was called and members of the CRIT responded, including USM Police Chief Lisa Beecher, Vice-President of Student and University Life Craig Hutchinson and two USM police officers.
The threat was not deemed credible and no evacuation was ordered.
“It was a good thing (the threat was not credible),” said Jenna Adley, assistant to the dean. “It’s so hard to reschedule law classes because they’re so intensive.”
“I was pleased with their promptness and smoothness,” said the School of Law’s Dean Peter Pitegoff of the CRIT’s actions. Wyler added that the situation had normalized a short time after 11:00 a.m.
Although the threatening e-mail was received during USM’s February break, Wyler said that the law school’s course schedule runs differently than the rest of the university and classes were held there throughout the week.
Beecher declined to comment on any connection between this threat and USM police’s current investigation into the previous threats. She also declined to reveal the content of the message.
Beecher would not comment on any connection between this latest threat and last November’s e-mail threat, and would only say that the message was also sent through an anonymous server, although not necessarily the same one.
“What I found strange was that it was apparently re-routed through a Canadian (e-mail) address,” said Wyler, who was present when authorities arrived at the School of Law to investigate.
All three of the universities’ campuses, Portland, Gorham and LAC experienced disruption during the 2006 fall semester from bomb threats that required evacuations and class cancellations. USM received seven bomb threats in October, November and December, including one sent by e-mail and at least one telephoned by an unknown female. This latest e-mail threat was the first of this year.
Changes in the university’s policies concerning the handling of the bomb threats in a more efficient manner were implemented last December. No evacuation was ordered during the last two threats, avoiding the disruption that accompanies such a move. One policy change made was to not respond immediately by evacuating and to assess each threat as they came in as to whether or not they were deemed a “credible” threat. A campus-wide e-mail alerting students to the threat was also sent as part of an increased effort to communicate CRIT’s actions.
Despite this most recent incident, Beecher said USM’s police department was “fine-tuning” their case to be presented to the Cumberland County District Attorney Office.
“We’re not going to do half of a job in the interest of getting things done quickly,” she said. “We’ll do the full job and do it well no matter how long it takes.”