Classes resume at WIU a day after shooting threat

Western Illinois University resumed its regular schedule this morning, a day after a handwritten note threatening a shooting prompted officials to lock down residence halls and tell students they could skip classes without penalty.

University officials, in a statement this morning, said police will maintain a heightened presence on campus throughout the day. In addition, residence halls remain locked and accessible only by residents with keys.

Authorities still are seeking the person or persons responsible for the threat, which came slightly more than a month after a gunman killed five students and himself in a crowded lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, just about 150 miles northeast of Western.

More Coverage Links WIU increases security after note about on-campus shooting [03/26/08] Western Illinois University Press release on threat

The threat, left at an apartment near the 11,000-student campus in Macomb triggered a university alert system Wednesday morning. An employee at an off-campus apartment complex received the note that was left in a drop-box sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday, university officials said.

"Basically, the letter said there would be a shooting on campus," Robert Fitzgerald, the head of Western's office of public safety, said at a news conference Wednesday. He declined to provide details about the note, including its exact contents.

No suspect was in custody, Macomb police said.

Western senior Tiffany McKibben, of Algonquin, had just gotten back to her apartment from an early morning exam when she got the text message warning of a shooting threat on her campus.

"I jumped up to make sure the door was locked. Then I shut all the windows and pulled all the blinds," she said. "It's scary because the Northern thing just happened. It's a very real thing that can happen again."

Western officials told students they could choose not to attend Wednesday classes but stopped short of canceling them or imposing a full lockdown, because they concluded "the threat was not pointed enough," Barker said.

"While this is an anonymous off-campus threat, it is imperative that we take all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our students, staff and faculty," Western's president, Al Goldfarb, said in a statement.

Shortly after the note was found, the school activated a text message system instituted following the Virginia Tech shooting a year ago. Junior Courtney Voelz of West Chicago was in her advertising class when she got the message.

"One girl told the teacher she had just gotten a text message from the school and then pretty soon, everyone started getting the text," Voelz said.

Voelz said her class was dismissed and students were told to go to a "safe place." Voelz said she went back to her campus dorm room where she remained for much of the day.

"It's scary," she said, "but it's good to know (the text message system) works, because with these things, you never know."

McKibben added that such uncertainty also leaves students a little angry.

"I know some people might be doing it as a joke or to get attention," she said. "There are people out there who do things like this as a cry for help. But it affects everyone else in such a big way."