Exactly one week ago, the Biological Sciences building at UBC was in lockdown. No one was hurt, and the explanation received from the university and RCMP is that there was an “unspecified threat.”
By piecing together various quotes from the RCMP, we can speculate that there was at least a suspect, that the threat was specific to the building, and that the police thought that the suspect might have been in the building. Clearly something was wrong if they had SWAT teams sweeping the building and were giving people secret words and such.
Today we’ve had another unspecified threat, even less specific than the last - this time it didn’t mention a building. They still closed down the bioscience building, because of last week’s incident, but classes were still being held elsewhere and students were urged to be vigilant.
An email forwarded from UBC president Stephen Toope yesterday afternoon says,
What can we all do when faced with such a threat? We are taking the advice of the RCMP to treat the non-specific nature of the threat with a higher level of community vigilance but to otherwise continue our normal activities.
He’s right, I think, but I hope this sort of event doesn’t start happening every week.
Well I am glad nothing came out of it. I noticed everyone was a little cautious walking around campus last wednesday.
I am not sure what would motivate someone to create panic for no good reason.