A campus emergency was declared Friday at noon after a bomb threat was called in. CSUN emergency notification system sent out emails, phone calls and text messages at 12:20 p.m. Students were advised to avoid the affected areas of B5 and B6 parking structures as well as the Physical Plant Management (PPM) area.
Amidst the confusion, students parked in the affected structures were unable to leave and classes were never officially canceled, although many students left after receiving the information.
“My car is actually parked in the space where the bomb supposedly is so we were evacuated. I can’t go to work and I’m stuck here. Also, there’s a supposedly bomb and there is only two cop cars which is interesting,” said Paras Kalra, 18, marketing major.
The Children’s Center was evacuated and parents were able to pick up their children at the police station on campus.
Christina Villalobos, CSUN police public information officer, said they received the phone call at 11:25 Friday morning.
“There was a suspicious vehicle alleged to have an explosive device. Our department called out LAPD bomb squad to assist us with that,” Villalobos said.
At 2:25 p.m. emergency notifications services sent out another mass e-mail, text and phone calls declaring the campus emergency to be over.
“Basically we got a bomb threat call here in Lot B of Cal State Northridge. A male, whose fiance goes to the school, got a call on his cell phone that someone had left a bomb inside the car and not to open the car. So he became, you know, (fearful) and called the police. Cal State Northridge Police department responded along with LAPD city fire and set up a unified command,” said Sgt. Martin Williams from the LAPD Devonshire division.
“For safety reasons we had to set up a larger perimeter because of the threat of the explosive device being inside a car. A bomb squad comes out, they go through several steps to ensure that there’s no device located and then once they’re sure of that they’ll go ahead and take a look inside the car, and they didn’t find anything,” said Williams. “They checked out the car, bomb squad checked out the car, nothing. ”
At this point in the investigation they have no idea where the call came from.
Hannah Pedraza, Sarah Smith and Juana Esquivel contributed to this report.
