Posted on 04/09/2012 7:59:45 AM PDT by Pietro
University of Pittsburgh students and faculty members will now have to present their IDs to enter campus buildings that receive bomb threats as part of an effort to improve "safety and the feeling of safety," a school spokesman said Sunday night.
Robert Hill, a spokesman for Pitt, said the university has entered "crisis mode" following a string of 21 bomb threats that began on Feb. 13. Some of the threats prompted evacuations at multiple buildings.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
I think its just a foretaste of things to come.
I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. On August 6, 1985, someone spray painted silhouettes of dead people all over the streets and sidewalks around campus to represent where all the dead bodies would be, if the Cathedral of Learning was ground zero.(40th anniversary of Hiroshima) I remember this, because I was taking summer classes that year and saw it up close and personal. There were plenty of radicals trying to make a statement then, and I’m sure there are even more now.
But, but....I thought it was discriminatory to require anyone to show ID. I KNOW that’s true because Eric Holder and the DOJ have gone to court to try to prove that idea.
In high school in the 1960’s some jamokes playing hooky called in a bomb threat. Our school had a huge cemetery on three sides and a LIRR freight yard on the other. There was only one road that cut through the cemetery and the last stop on an elevated subway (oxymoron, I know) line terminated there, so if you wanted to watch the chaos, you had to go down the road through the cemetery.
Now, it was strictly forbidden to drive a car within one block of our school one hour before or after the start of class. So what do these jamokes do, after sending 3,000 students onto the only street near the school? They drive right down the road, where they are observed by at least 2,995 students and about 100 faculty.
I'm a Pitt alum, and my parents still live in the area. I believe they told me that Jim Quinn, a conservative local radio host, speculated that there was an Occupy connection to these threats. Has anyone else heard this? Are these all just "tests" in preparation for Election Day? Are we about to have OWS commit yet more domestic terrorism?
University of Pittsburgh students and faculty members will now have to present their IDs to enter campus buildings that receive bomb threats...
But not to register or to vote!
I remember that “body silouette” protest in ‘85 too.
My brother had a friend on campus who walked up to these protesters and said “War is good. My dad makes missles for a living. The threat of nuclear war is what pays my tuition at Pitt”.
They were awestruck and dumbfounded at his response.
Upshot of the “new security” is no more non-Pitt students entering the dorms, and no backpacks or book bags can be carried into any campus building.
On a college campus? Yeah, like THAT will last!
Nope its either an attention hound/mental patient or its something that started as one student trying to get out of a test and has snowballed with copycats etc. Either way, whoever they finally catch, regardless of whether they did all of these or just one of them, they are going to not get any leniency.. at this point attempting to be a student at Pitt is a joke.
No backpacks in any building? Are you serious? How do you expect students to be a student if they can’t even carry their books to their classes.
Its not their fault mind you, but its a joke. I’d be demanding a refund, they charge an arm and a leg to go there anymore. What I paid for 4 years about 20 years ago won’t even cover 1 year now.
Jim Quinn’s speculations are worth the paper they are written on...
There is no evidence this has anything to do with any OWS or otherwise.
This crap all started just after the shooting at Western Psych, there is as much evidence that had something to do with this as their is OWS or aliens for that matter.
It started out as 1 threat every day or two, now its escalated to several buildings every day, including 3 or 4 yesterday. No evidence of anything has ever been found, its all just nonsense. Either a lone attention wanting nut, or a disgruntled student or employee, or its not one person at all but one person started it and copy cats are all over the place now. I highly doubt it has anything to do with OWS... those washed out hippies don’t have the motivation to do anything every day other than smoke pot and play in their drum circles.
I know a lot of schools and some places of business only permit students/employees to carry see-through plastic purses and backpacks.
Sooner or later, someone is sure to walk to one of the building entrances with "I Called in the Bomb Threats" stamped right on their ID. < / sarcasm >
The rules changes will upset a lot of people. Maybe that is (partially) the point, if there is a current Pitt connection. One problem is the publicity given to this person or persons.
The publicity can be enticing the perp to continue.
With the current state of technology they could be using Magic Jack to call in these threats from internet cafes in twelve different countries.
No backpacks or book bags? At a university? I was an engineering student and there is no way you can truck a day’s worth of books around campus without a backpack. Even a half-day is impossible!
Now hold on, HJ...at first you claim there's NO evidence, but then later you only say you "highly doubt it."
I'm not trying to create controversy, and I have no stake in this, other than being an alumnus, and having some connections in the vicinity. Of course no evidence has been found yet (or, what has been found won't be shared), but a stunt like this seems to be exactly within the modus operandi of the OWS kooks.
This is exactly what those whack jobs would do, and it wouldn't take much motivation to call in from some hard-to-trace phone or anonymous IP address. I'm not saying they're to blame, but if I were a detective on the case, I wouldn't dismiss them as a possibility.
If I were still a student at Pitt, I would be very irritated by this. I agree with the other posters who claim it would be nearly impossible to carry books around without a backpack. This is a major inconvenience, public and private money-waster, and a potential threat to public safety. Which incidentally, is the same way you could describe the OWS protests.
Indeed, what is amazing about this case is the complete apparent lack of any sort of lead on the perps after nearly two dozen threats.
Which is why I think some high-tech skullduggery is involved.
In the old days they’d have traced some calls and made some arrests by now.
Can’t rule OWS in nor out because they just don’t know.
Well, first it started as notes left in bathrooms and now its anonymous emails from Austria.
My daughter's a student there and she's trying to figure out how she's going to carry a laptop, books, notebooks etc around w/ her.
Its the frequency and the timing of the threats that leads me to believe there's something more here than pranksters.
I am an alumni, I still live in Pitt, and I am very close with several people who actually work at Pitt. Anyone claiming OWS involvement is full of crap.
There is no evidence, at all, other than Jim Quinn spouting off his conspiracy theory nonsense on the radio to connect anyone or anything to this, so trust me when I say, there is about as much evidence that OWS has anything to do with this as Aliens do.
Please, I am no fan of the OWS idiots, but to claim their involvement is nonsense at this point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.