Bomb Threat Emergency Shuts Campus

By Doreen Bernardini

It started as a routine day for Margaret Booker, RVCC switchboard operator. She placed her coat across the file cabinet, turned on her computer, turned on the switchboard and began to take phone calls at 8 a.m. as she has every morning since 1995.

But Wednesday, Nov. 28 was not a routine day. At 9:04 a.m. Booker received a call, and not your routine transfer call, either. The caller said, “There is a bomb in the building.”

Booker said the first thing she noticed was the caller ID. Then pure instinct kicked in. She paid attention to the caller’s voice, asked where the bomb was, listened for any background noises or other voices and tried to keep the caller on the phone. But the caller hung up.

“The voice was flat.” Booker said later.

“I immediately called security,” she said. “I asked them to come to my office right away. That’s what you’ve got to do. I didn’t want to tell them over the phone about the bomb threat. Anyone walking by my office could hear the conversation. The walls are thin here.”

Security Site Manager Dale Ford and Sgt. Maribel Adaco were the first to respond to Booker’s request for security. “Once all information had been collected, I proceeded to President (Casey) Crabill’s office,” said Ford. “An immediate evacuation procedure was set in motion,” and the school was evacuated at 9:35 a.m.

Security guards went through the buildings and told students to leave. A student who was in the student lounge of West at the time said they weren’t told what the emergency was, just that they had to leave the building. In the parking lot word spread through the crowd that it was a bomb scare.

Branchburg Police responded as did officers from the Somerset County Prosecutors Office and Sheriff’s Office. According to police, Dr. Crabill made the decision to bring in bomb-sniffing dogs. “With a call like this,” said Branchburg Police Det. Manuel Camunas, “all departments are able to utilize the resources available to them.” The call, he said, came from off campus.

Because it was still early, campus was not yet full and the evacuation went fairly smoothly, according to Ford, although some students didn’t want to leave at first. RVCC Security Sgt. Thomas Mondy said several hundred backpacks, coats and personal items were left on campus. Possibly, students expected to return to the building quickly as they had after each of the three false fire alarms in October. RVCC security personnel brought the things to the theater where they were cleared by police and later sorted by RVCC faculty. Students were able to retrieve their belongings the next day.

The campus was declared bomb-free at about 4 p.m., but it was too late to run night classes. The school officially closed for the day at 3 p.m.

RVCC security guards patrolled the lots throughout the day, telling students who arrived for classes after the campus was evacuated that classes were cancelled. According to security guard Muhammad Aiyat, they were instructed to say only that there was an emergency, not that there had been a bomb scare. President Casey Crabill, Public Safety Director Reinhold Woykowski and Vice President of Facilities John Trojan were still on campus with Ford at 7:00 p.m., he said.

The campus reopened the next day.

According to Ford, the process went well. “After this event, this procedure will be restructured. (We’ll be) improving technology and procedures to make the process more efficient,” he said.

That technology will likely include an improved text messaging system. News of the bomb scare was posted on the RVCC Web site almost immediately. But students, faculty and staff who had signed up for the text message alert system did not receive notification. That’s because the system was found to be flawed and has been shut down. A new text and voice notification system ought to be in place by the spring, according to Janet Thompson, Executive Director of Marketing.

“Until the new system is in place, we are using the traditional method of notification,” she said, “the way it has been done for years.” In inclement weather, information will be posted on the web site and the media will be notified. In event of a similar emergency, campus security personnel will again evacuate students.

According to Ford, the incident did not appear to be related to the recent fire alarms. Anyone with information regarding this incident or the fire alarm pulls should contact Det. Camunas at (908) 526-3830. The information will be kept confidential.