NYPD: Bomb Threat At Columbia University, 3 Other Ivy Leagues Schools Swatting Prank

Columbia University was one of the Ivy League schools that received bomb threats, but New York City Police Department (NYPD) deemed it a swatting incident.

Following a bomb threat, buildings like Lerner Hall and Carman Hall on the Columbia University campus were evacuated Sunday, reported CBS New York. The university alerted students and staff about the bomb threats around 2.30 pm Sunday.

Later, a tweet from the university's official account read that after an investigation, the NYPD deemed the bomb threats "not credible," and the evacuated buildings had been cleared for re-occupancy.

Explaining that swatting has two meanings, Andy Costello, a former NYPD deputy inspector of police, said that one is when a person makes a fake threat to distract cops before committing a crime in a different location. He added, “But it’s morphed into a term where people make fake bomb threats simultaneously at different locations, just to attract and move police resources to them."

Recalling some of the tense moments Sunday, Christian Gomes and his roommate, Cole Fitzgibbons, said that they got an alarming text message that was sent to students of the Columbia University. Fitzgibbons said that at that point, they took their stuff and "we just dipped."

Gomes said that after they left the campus, he learned his college friends were also evacuating at Brown University and Cornell University due to similar threats they received around the same time. Gomes pointed out that a few days ago, it happened at Yale as well, and that made him wonder if someone was targeting the Ivy League schools. Fitzgibbons initially thought it was a hoax, but then it "seemed like it was a real thing."

Reports of bomb threats to Cornell University were confirmed via Twitter where an advisory to avoid central campus was issued while cops investigated the threats, reported NBC New York.

Nikolas Martin, who studies at Cornell, was in New York City when his school sent an evacuation message, but he found it shocking and he got worried. He called his friends who were still on campus, and tried to make sure that everybody was safe.

The threats made at Cornell as well as Brown were also not deemed credible, said authorities.