CSUN Mass Shooting Threats Came From Different People: Police

NORTHRIDGE, CA — Cal State Northridge students began finals Wednesday morning amid beefed up security due to multiple threats of a mass shooting at the University. However, the campus remained largely empty Wednesday as most students chose to stay away due to the threats.

"It's pretty much a ghost town out there," CSUN spokeswoman Carmen Ramos Chandler told City News Service at mid-morning.

Investigators determined that two written threats promising shooting rampages Wednesday over the last week were written by different people.

A handwritten note was found Monday night threatening a shooting at the campus as well as nearby Northridge Academy. It cam just a few days after someone scrawled a similar threat on the wall of a campus bathroom. Acknowledging the anxiety among students, the university announced "alternative format options" for fall semester final exams.

"Because student anxiety is high, which will affect their performance on finals, I have directed all faculty who have examinations on Dec. 12 to provide alternative examination options for their students that would not require students to be physically present on campus Wednesday," said CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison. "Faculty will be communicating specifics of their plans with their students."

For final exams on Thursday through next Tuesday, faculty will provide "alternative exam format options and accommodate students who are not comfortable coming to campus," Harrison said.

"Students should contact their instructors to request alternative arrangements," she said. "Any student requesting such an accommodation will not be subject to any instructor-imposed penalty."

Still, authorities determined there was no imminent threat to students and staff, said CSUN police Chief Anne P. Glavin. On Tuesday she said the campus will remain open, but said there would be a stepped-up police presence.

Glavin said the CSUN Police Department was notified of the latest threat at 10:44 p.m. Monday "by a CSUN student that he had found the note, which is circulating on social media, on the floor of a classroom in Redwood Hall."

"He immediately got in touch with us when he found it -- turned it in to us -- which is exactly what we would hope to have happen," Glavin said. "And we have been investigating that ever since."

The letter said: "I am writing this to inform the people of CSUN that I will kill everyone on the 12 of December 2018. I am aware that I will probably (be) shot and killed, but before that happens, I'm killing as many (expletive) as I possibly can."

The person who wrote the letter said a student at Northridge Academy High School, which is adjacent to CSUN, would carry out a mass shooting at that school the same day.

"He's gonna give bullys (sic) what they deserve, death," the letter said.

The writer went on to say that police won't be able to protect students and staff.

"The teachers and proffesors (sic) are surely going to (expletive) die for making students depressed and giving us (expletive) work that will never serve us good in life. You (expletive) are gonna bleed to death."

Glavin said school police were being assisted by the Los Angeles Police Department in the investigation.

"At this time, I can tell you ... there is no what I would call an imminent threat," Glavin said. "I am not at a place where I am going to say that the latest handwritten note is either credible or not credible -- and that is part of what we are looking at."

The increased police presence on campus will continue throughout finals week, officials said.

Last Wednesday, a shooting threat and swastika were found scrawled in a toilet in Sierra Hall. The threat read: "Mass shooting in Sierra Hall 12/12/18," with the swastika below. Sierra Hall is home to the school's Psychology Department.

"We have not taken our eyes off the appearance of swastikas and hate language in our men's restrooms," Harrison said following that discovery.

"We will continue to forcefully and emphatically denounce these cowardly acts of anti-Semitic, racist hate wherever they occur," she said. "Sadly, the world in which we live requires we take threats of violence and expressions of hate seriously -- even when there is no evidence to suggest that the threatened acts are likely to materialize."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.