The Grambling State Police Department, Grambling Police Department, the Ruston Police Department, the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Louisiana State Police and the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division all responded early Thursday morning following a bomb threat to the university’s Betty Smith Nursing Building.
That bomb threat was called in to the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday, with the LPSO quickly notifying GSU and the other agencies according to GSU Police Chief Rod Demery.
The bomb threat resulted in the evacuation of four buildings on the west side of GSU’s campus — the GSU Nursing Building along with the GSU Performing Arts Center, Jacob Stewart Hall and Charles Adams Hall.
“Unfortunately, bomb threats are pretty common, but we take them all seriously not knowing if there is a bomb or not,” Demery said during a short meeting with members of the media Thursday morning while the situation was still unfolding. “So our first order of business was to evacuate the building and systematically search the building to see if anything or anybody looked suspicious.
“We contacted our emergency management team, put the information out, secured the building and any adjacent buildings to make sure we had a pretty good perimeter. From that point we started our investigation. It was a combined effort with the Grambling State Police Department, Grambling Police Department, the Ruston Police Department, the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Louisiana State Police and the FBI’s Counterterrorism Antiterrorism Task Force and all of those agencies were here within minutes.Those were the first steps to make sure everyone was safe.”
Persons inside other buildings on campus were advised to shelter in place until the situation was resolved with classes moving to an online format.
At 12:27 p.m. a Gram Alert “all-clear” message was sent out saying that law enforcement had cleared the area and the campus could return to normal.
During that early meeting with the press, Demery said finding the culprit who made the threat would be “relentless” and that there are some leads he hoped would be viable.
“I’m confident to say that whoever did this should just turn themselves in, because we are going to find them,” Demery said. “It’s a very complex investigation and a lot of things that have to be done in a short period of time. And obviously we want to be thorough with the investigation and be able to locate the suspect.
“And if we don’t find a suspect right away, we’re not going to stop. For obvious reasons, we can’t have that kind of activity going on and not do what we have to do to find out who did this.”
Demery asked that anyone who might have information on the incident call the GSUPD at 274-2222 to report it.
“As what has become a very common phrase, if you see something, do something, and if anyone has any information — where or who anyone might have done this, give us a call,” Demery said. “ We would prefer that the calls come to the GSU Police Department.”
