The Thomas Chronicles

The day after yesterday’s Virginia Tech massacre, schools in seven states reported alarms. It is safe to say, everyone is a bit unnerved from recent events…

Threats Rattle Schools in 7 States

AUSTIN, Texas — Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities and grade schools in seven states on Tuesday, a day after a Virginia Tech student’s shooting rampage killed 33 people.

One threat in Louisiana directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while others were reports of suspicious activity in Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

In Louisiana, parents picked up hundreds of students from Bogalusa’s high school and middle school amid reports that a man had been arrested Tuesday morning for threatening a mass killing in a note that alluded to the murders at Virginia Tech.

Schools Superintendent Jerry Payne said both schools were locked down and police arrested a 53-year-old man who allegedly made the threat in a note he gave to a student headed to the private Bowling Green School in Franklinton. Both towns are in southeastern Louisiana.

“The note referred to what happened at Virginia Tech,” Payne said. “It said something like, ‘If you think that was bad, then you haven’t seen anything yet.”

In Rapid City, South Dakota, schools were locked down after receiving reports of a man with a gun in a parking lot at Central High. No shots were fired and no injuries were reported, police said. The high school students were taken to the nearby Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, where parents were allowed to pick up their children.

In Austin, authorities evacuated buildings at St. Edward’s University after a threatening note was found, a school official said.

Police secured the campus perimeter and were searching the buildings, St. Edward’s University spokeswoman Mischelle Amador said. She declined to say where the note was found and said its contents were “nonspecific.”

(hat tip: Tate)

Update:

Commentor Lucy wrote:

Yesterday Keene State College was threatened with an enscription on a bathroom wall that supported the killer and threatened of a repeat of the tragedy on campus sometime soon.

Readers, do you think that the Virginia Tech Massacre will shift the consciousness of Americans the way Columbine didn’t? Will we look back years from now and see this event as a defining moment in our history, much like 9/11 was but in a smaller way?

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