Campus and police officials are investigating a second threat of violence against Cal State University Northridge in as many weeks, and school administrators said students will be allowed to take final exams off campus this week.
The new threat came in the form of a handwritten letter found about 10:45 p.m. Monday in a classroom at Redwood Hall that indicated the shooting of students and professors on Wednesday.
CSUN police are investigating the incident. The Los Angeles Police Department is assisting with an increase in patrol around campus.
While law enforcement does not believe the threat is imminent, final exams scheduled for Wednesday will be offered in alternative formats, university President Dianne F. Harrison said in a message to the campus, citing the community’s “extreme stress and anxiety.”
For exams scheduled Thursday, Dec. 13, through the following Tuesday, Dec. 18, “faculty will provide alternative exam format options and accommodate students who are not comfortable coming to campus,” Harrison said.
It was unclear what format the exams would be give in.
Despite the change in exams, the campus will remain open for the remained of the semester, Harrison said.
The threatening note, sent to KTLA from at least two CSUN students, read in part that the person making the threat was going to kill as many people as possible at CSUN and nearby Northridge Academy High School on Dec. 12.
It is filled with spelling and grammatical errors.
“The teachers and proffessors [sic] are surely going to f****** die for making students depreessed [sic] and giving us b******* work that will never serve us good in life,” the threat read.
Cal State Northridge Department of Police Services Chief Anne Glavin couldn’t say if the threat is credible or not credible because the investigation is still early and ongoing.
“If we do have a situation where we have someone using the threat of a mass shooting to get out of an exam, that’s absolutely abhorrent,” Glavin said Tuesday.
She said investigators are reviewing surveillance cameras around campus in an effort to find the person or people responsible for the incidents.
Last Thursday, a threat of a mass shooting was scrawled in black marker at a building on the campus. The message read “Mass shooting in Sierra Hall 12/12/18” and included a swastika. It was found in a men’s bathroom on the third floor of Sierra Hall. Another message included the N-word.
Authorities do not believe the two threats were written by the same person.
“Neither of these threats are threats that we will bow down to,” Galvin said.
Harrison called the threats and the graffiti “despicable acts” during a news conference Tuesday.
“Sadly, the world in which we live requires that we take threats of violence and expressions of hate seriously while not allowing us to deter us from our mission,” the president said. “There is no place at CSUN for these cowardly acts that seek to intimidate others.”