Virginia Tech officials warned the campus community after threatening emails arrived at multiple campus email addresses Monday afternoon.
Campus police are investigating. “We take all threats seriously,” spokesman Mark Owczarski wrote in an email Monday afternoon. We issued a campus wide email to make the community aware and ask people to share information if they have any.”
The campus message read, “At this time, Virginia Tech Police can confirm that an email was sent to dozens of emails addresses within our campus community that included a threat to campus safety.
“Virginia Tech Police take all such incidents seriously and are actively investigating,” and included ways to contact police with information.
The Collegiate Times, a campus newspaper, reported that messages from several Gmail accounts contained this message: “I am here to inform that in the next couple of days I will break in to the campus and will kill as many people as I can until the police arrives.”
The paper also reported that some instructors had canceled classes.
Owczarski wrote that he had not seen the email and could not confirm the wording. The university has not canceled classes.
In 2007, a student opened fire on the Blacksburg campus and killed 32 people before turning the gun on himself, one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Susan Svrluga
