All Clear Sounded After Bomb Threat At LSU Forces Evacuation
11:00p.m. Update: Ernie Ballard, Director of Media Relations for LSU has released the following statement:
All campus buildings have been returned to normal operations and the campus is now open for students, faculty and staff. All classes and events scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 18, will be held as planned, and university employees and students should plan to return to their normal schedules on Tuesday.
7:45 p.m. Update: LSU's Facebook Page has released the following update to the bomb threat situation:
The call came in around 10:30 a.m. Monday morning to the East Baton Rouge Parish 911 center. Within an hour, the roughly 30,000 students and faculty on campus were evacuated.
Cole Estillete is a student at LSU. He says he got the emergency text message and email ordering them to evacuate. He says when everyone tried to got off the campus, "basically all roads leading out of campus (turned) into a parking lot."
Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Mike Edmonson credits excellent communication between the university and law enforcement for a job well done.
That is a tremendous effort and a success in and off itself to move that many people in that short amount of time.
State Police say they're committed to catching the person or persons who called in the bomb threat. Colonel Edmonson says the first priority was seeing to everyone's safety. Priority two is catching the perpetrator.
We certainly will do everything we can to make sure that the responsible person is arrested.
Edmonson says officers with bomb detecting dogs and equipment combed over every building on campus. He says this kind of disruption cannot be ignored, and also cannot be tolerated.
Our goal is for the campus life and the community of LSU to return to normal.
This is a story that has not only taken center stage in the state of Louisiana, but has gotten the attention of national media outlets, including coverage from NBC and coverage from CBS. This comes after campuses in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio were evacuated Friday after receiving bomb threats, but police found no explosives. Louisiana State Police say they have been talking to their counterparts in these states to determine whether there are similarities.
Four East Baton Rouge Parish Schools were put on lock down as a safety precaution. Those schools were Buchanan Elementary, Polk Elementary, University Terrace Elementary and McKinley High School.
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1:24 p.m. Update: All events on the LSU campus have been cancelled for the remainder of the day as LSU Police, supported by multiple law enforcement agencies, continue to investigate a bomb threat that prompted the evacuation of the LSU campus around 11:30 a.m. It is important for all members of the LSU community -- faculty, staff and students -- to remain off campus unless specifically instructed to return.
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11:40 a.m. A bomb threat has been reported on the LSU Campus. According to LSUEOC, Students and faculty are being asked to evacuate in a calm and orderly fashion.
There are no concrete details, but both the school's website and their Facebook page are asking for students to evacuate. We will keep you posted as details become available.
KPEL's Bernadette Lee and Brandon Comeaux contributed to this story.