A Quinnipiac University student was apprehended Wednesday following an anonymous bomb threat on the social media platform YikYak.
Hamden police arrested 22-year-old Nkemakoam Okafor and charged him with first-degree breach of peace, according to Hamden Police’s arrest log. Okafor was released on a $10,000 bond.
At approximately 1:40 p.m., a concerned Quinnipiac student alerted the Department of Public Safety to the bomb threat posted on YikYak.
The post read, “who ever is on main in the student center dont use the women’s bathroom there is a pipe bomb in there.”
Located in the central part of Quinnipiac’s Mount Carmel Campus, the Carl Hansen Student Center houses the dining hall, Starbucks and the mail center. It is also connected to Tator Hall and the Clarice S. Buckman Theater.
A fire alarm was activated around 2:10 p.m. to evacuate the student center after the threat was reported. Students in Tator Hall were asked to evacuate minutes later.
Thais Gonzalez, a first-year nursing major, was on the third floor of Tator Hall when police came to evacuate students.
“They should have put an alarm throughout the whole building cause I didn’t know there was a bomb threat until we were already outside,” Gonzalez said.
Students were notified about the threat by the university’s QU Alert system through phone calls, emails and text messages.
“We got a bunch of text messages and calls from Quinnipiac, but no one knew what was going on,” said Catalina Wentzell, a sophomore finance major, was in Echlin Center for class at the time. “Then a student in the back said that there was some sort of bomb threat. As far as if it was true or not, we really didn’t know.”
Quinnipiac Public Safety worked with Hamden police and the Regional Bomb Squad, which used four bomb detection K-9s to search the building around 3:20 p.m.
Students waited outside while officers and K-9s searched the building. Some students, who believed that it was a fire drill when the alarm sounded, left their backpacks and other belongings in the building. They were not allowed to retrieve their bags until after the building was cleared later that day.
“No one was clear on if it was a drill or not and we didn’t know what was happening so we just left our backpacks and computers inside,” Jennifer Moglia, a graduate public relations student, said. ”Then when public safety was pushing us to move further away from the building we were hesitant to because we were nervous about our valuables inside.”
A third message was sent out by QU Alert notifying students that classes in Tator Hall were moved online. By 4:31 p.m., students, faculty and staff were notified that no pipe bomb was found, and the student center and Tator Hall were reopened..
Quinnipiac President Judy Olian sent out a schoolwide message at 6:31 p.m. regarding the incident and thanked Public Safety, Hamden Police and the Regional Bomb Squad for their efforts in helping. Olian emphasized how “… the vigilance of our (Quinnipiac) community played a key role.”
Multiple college campuses, such as Albany State University, Clemson University and Williams College, have experienced bomb threats in 2024. There has been an increase of bomb threats in 2021 and 2022 according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“I do think that there should have been something sent out in the beginning of the year about what to do in these types of situations, because it’s not something that we really expected,” Wentzell said.