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Schools
Tip about upset student closes SPC campus
By Cristina Silva, Times Staff Writer
Published February 16, 2008
A day after the fatal shootings at Northern Illinois University, St. Petersburg College Gibbs Campus was sent into high alert when school officials received a nonspecific tip that a student upset by a B grade was threatening to take action Friday morning. School officials immediately evacuated the campus and security officials escorted the student's natural sciences professor to his car. Students and faculty members fled the school, some in tears, while administration officials sent out an alert to students advising them to avoid the campus. The tipster told school officials that the student had threatened to harm the campus, said Amelia Carey, a college spokeswoman. "The student didn't say what he was going to do. He said that he was unhappy and that he might come to the campus and do damage," she said. The call came in at about 11:40 a.m. as professors graded papers and students filed onto campus, the college's largest, Carey said. It was the first time the college used its emergency alert system, purchased in the wake of the Virginia Tech school shootings in April 2007, Carey said. The system quickly makes phone calls to students and staff. Sandi Jacobsmeyer received the alert, intended for her daughter, a student, and feared the worst Friday afternoon. "I thought someone went nuts," she said. "It immediately freaked me out." The student is no longer enrolled at the college. He is not under criminal investigation, said St. Petersburg police spokesman George Kajtsa. The student, whom officials refused to identify because he has not been charged, wanted his grade changed and had been sending e-mails to his science professor, who also was not identified, since the semester ended in mid December, Carey said. Professor Thomas Lancraft was working from home when he received an e-mail about the threat. "It was a little scary," he said. The school's immediate reaction "was a sign of the times." Cristina Silva can be reached at csilva@sptimes.com or 727 893-8846.
[Last modified February 15, 2008, 23:17:48]
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by Laci
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02/16/08 01:03 PM
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It was not the first time the alert system was used. It was used on Monday when there was a threat at the Clearwater Campus. Check facts people.
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