Penn State Chief of Police Keith Morris spoke to the University Park Undergraduate Association at its weekly meeting Wednesday night about the police department in general and about a “suspicious individual” police investigated earlier in the day.
In a few words, he said the incident was much ado about nothing.
Police received a report around 3:30 p.m. that an individual dressed in all black and carrying what appeared to be some kind of pressure cooker or thermos was walking across Old Main Lawn.
“Of course when you hear something like that, it raises the hair on our arms,” Morris said, “and we respond, but we didn’t have any threat.”
Although the report said the person seemed suspicious, there was no one actually threatening violence against anyone or anything on campus.
Morris said police heard reports that the individual was near the HUB and then in the library. When officers found the individual inside the library, he was studying and eating rice out of a pressure cooker or similar looking appliance.
“What happened was people who were in the area were overhearing little bits and pieces of what our officers were talking to witnesses about,” Morris said.
Because of what the public has seen and heard about “pressure cooker bombs,” this incited a degree of panic as students spread rumors through social media and specifically GroupMe. “…That does not help us do our job,” Morris said.
The university sent out an alert at about 4:40 p.m. stating that police had investigated and identified the suspicious person and that there was no threat to the campus.
Some members of the community expressed concern that they heard rumors long before Penn State sent out an alert, but Morris assured UPUA representatives that the police department would act swiftly in the event of an actual threat on campus.
“If there was a threat…we would’ve taken immediate action to notify our community members through the alert system and any other way that we possibly could to get that message out there,” Morris said.
