LANCASTER – Antelope Valley College resumed a full schedule of class and business operations today after being closed much of Tuesday because of unspecified threats made online and via text messages.
AVC President Ed Knudson addressed the issue in a statement released Wednesday. Read it below:
Early morning on Tuesday, Dec. 1, a threat was received via text message by some of our students and was reported to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD). The Lancaster station of the LASD and the substation on the AVC campus responded to the complaint and began an investigation.
Campus administration was notified of the threat between 4:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. By 7 a.m. the college’s executive team was assembled. After receiving a briefing from law enforcement and a thorough review of the information available at the time, the decision to close campus and evacuate was made at 7:55 a.m. The safety of all faculty, staff, students, CDC Child Care Center, SOAR High School, and the CSUB satellite campus [was] the greatest priority.
The evacuation of campus took less than an hour. Campus was swept by the LASD K-9 unit and the AVC Maintenance & Operations crew. By early afternoon, the campus was clear of any threats. The decision was made to reopen for evening classes.
Throughout the event, our RAVE Alert System, website, social media, text messaging, on-campus radios, and e-mail were used to keep the community, students, faculty and staff apprised of the events as they unfolded. These systems worked effectively with few exceptions that we will continue to improve in the future.
I want to thank the entire Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Officers were called in on overtime. Deputies traveled from Santa Clarita to work with the team here. We had a heightened presence on campus before 6 a.m. These professionals kept us briefed on the investigation, patrolled constantly, deployed the trained security officers and AVC student cadets throughout campus. Their response was immediate, comprehensive and thorough. I am thankful for not only their presence on campus, but also the professionalism and care with which they dispatch their duties.
The AVC executive team came together swiftly, responded calmly and professionally, openly discussed alternatives and advised me objectively, openly and honestly. I cannot thank each of them enough for this tremendous work.
Our Maintenance and Operations staff exceeded all expectations. This crew was instrumental in sealing off campus. They assisted with evacuating students and staff, checked and locked down all buildings, and then swept campus looking for stragglers and suspicious elements. Doing this work in a drill is one thing. Doing it when the nature of the threat is unknown, quite another. I thank everyone in our Facilities, Maintenance and Operations staff for their diligence and courage…no one asked to go home.
The investigation into the incident and the threat is ongoing and progressing. As information from LASD becomes publicly available, we will share it. This threat represents a serious crime and our persistent support of the LASD in their investigation is essential.
The fact that this incident ended without harm or injury is something for which I am tremendously thankful. Today is a new day. Our college is open as usual, and the good work we do will continue.
Previous related story: AVC closes after threats of violence
–
J says
Strange that I heard on the news yesterday that the same thing happened at the University of Chicago…Maybe somebody was being a copycat?
J says
Also read that it happened in Harrisburg PA today…The Harrisburg Campus of HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, received a bomb threat on Dec. 2, 2015, at approximately 10:45 a.m. Shortly thereafter, we issued an alert informing HACC students, employees and visitors to evacuate the Harrisburg Campus.
Loam says
It’s not a copycat. Students are just learning a basic principle of cause and effect. A social media threat results in a school closure. This will keep happening until a repercussion is applied or if the police stop applying the effect.
The former won’t happen because someone probably used a burner phone to send the text and the latter won’t happen in today’s politically correct environment.
Eric says
Bingo. The Chicago case was an obvious hoax looking at the kid’s statement. His language was obviously posture only, his focus on the weapons (and the choice of wording in describing them) was obviously childish. Low and behold, they let the kid back onto campus after they found out he didn’t even possess the weapons. There’s a racial element to that story, it’s lack of coverage, but I don’t really feel like getting into that and it isn’t necessarily relevant to the current discussion.
I saw a comment about the one at AVC stating that it was “cut and paste” from a threat that had been sent to a Missouri school several years before, and had been used in a similar fashion elsewhere before. I haven’t seen the statement myself, can’t confirm. Also, the date is a pretty obvious factor.
Ever met a college kid NOT looking to get out of finals?
Loam says
Not every college kid, but out of 14,000, how many are willing to goof off to skip a day of school?
Yes, at colleges around the country, this is going to become a common practice.
Brittnee says
Well I certainly hope the police never stop responding to these types of threats. Blame it on college students all you want, but not taking these threats seriously is how school shootings happen. Don’t think we’re so special and the AV community is so amazing that it would never happen here. It has nothing to do with political correctness (given that political correctness means using neutral terminology when speaking) and everything to do with keeping our community safe.
rf says
Odd, I have an AVC email & never heard a damn thing about this via email, or social media.. & I’m not so sure about this claim to have alerted the community. I live right across the street from the college & wasn’t told anything… which community exactly did they alert.. the one Rex Parris lives in?
dv says
You need to be signed up for alerts.