JERSEY CITY, New Jersey
--
A small college in New Jersey locked down its campus Wednesday after receiving e-mailed threats, authorities said.
Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said the handwritten note made no mention of bombs or guns, but did threaten violence against St. Peter's College. Fire officials had said in initial reports that the note was an e-mailed bomb threat. Healy said his information came from a briefing by the police chief.
Police immediately ordered the campus closed while they began searching each room of each building at the school, which has about 3,000 students. No particular building was mentioned in the note, police said.
"We take it very seriously because of everything that has happened nationally. We want to make sure the students are safe," police Lt. Edgar Martinez told WABC-TV in New York. Nothing had been found by midday, he said.
On Feb. 14, a gunman killed five students and then himself at Northern Illinois University in the deadliest of several recent school shootings around the country.
Commuter students were being sent home, according to a posting on St. Peter's Web site, and some students were notified about the threat by text messages from the school.
Student Carmen Class said some students started to panic when they were told they couldn't leave the building.
"Some people started screaming," she said. "I was thinking, 'What's happening? Is this a rumor or is this real?' I felt safer after the police came."
___
On the Net:
St. Peter's College: http://www.spc.edu/
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
