By Shlomie Katash
York College and Queens College received “credible” bomb threats on Thursday, Feb. 22, leading to lockdowns and cancelation of classes.
The bomb threats were received by school officials via email at approximately 12:50pm, according to the NY Post. York announced it would be going remote at 1:15pm, Queens followed suit and soon announced it would be closing their campus.
Students were able to safely evacuate, but the impact was noticeable. Passerbys noticed and documented via the Citizen app a quieter campus–one stripped of its usual liveliness. That day, at least, students no longer flooded the gates of Queens College to make it in time for their classes or going about their daily lives; no one could be found on campus. Queen’s leadership expressed their thoughts on the bomb threats against campuses, stating that they would not be tolerated.
“Making threats like these are dangerous and disgusting. We won’t stand for this in Queens,” Queens Borough President Dononvan Richards said via Twitter. “My office is monitoring the situation.”
Brooklyn College was not affected by the threats, according to BC administration. If the school were to be threatened, administration has a plan in place to respond as quickly as possible.
“[If BC was threatened] the following steps would happen as rapidly as possible: the emergency response team on our campus (president, vice presidents, public safety, communications, facilities, and environmental health and safety), would be notified, as would CUNY’s public safety leadership,” a BC spokesperson relayed to The Vanguard via Ludovic Leroy, Interim AVP for Marketing and Communications at BC. “Public safety would consult with the administration and the expertise in the NYPD to determine if the threat is credible. If the threat is determined to be credible, the campus would issue an appropriate CUNY Alert, with instructions for what to do and how to remain safe.”
The instructions may include evacuation, like in York College and Queens College, though that would depend on the “nature of the threat and the information received,” according to the spokesperson. On-campus public safety would manage any evacuation.
The bomb threat on Thursday is still currently under investigation by the NYPD, and no arrests have been made, according to Fox 5.
This is not the first time that York has received a bomb threat. The Queens Daily Eagle reported in 2022 that the school received a threat in the morning, and evacuated and canceled classes by noon. The NYPD determined the threat to be a hoax.