At approximately 11:36 a.m. on Sept. 30, the Case Western Reserve University community received an alert from the Rave alert system which stated to avoid the area around Cleveland Institute of Art as the “police [were] investigating an incident.”

A follow-up message was sent at 12:24 p.m. communicating that there were multiple road closures due to police presence. Fifteen minutes later, the incident was revealed to be a bomb threat.

Fourth-year Zoie Vincent was unaware of the threat until she “heard about it from a teacher who said their class is being moved from the Hearing Speech Center to Crawford.” After reading the original alert, Vincent saw that “the CIA had received a bomb threat, and that was pretty much the only way [she] knew about it.”

When asked about how second-year Carlo Carruba heard about the news and his initial response, Carruba responded “I heard about the threat through the app, Spartan Safe, and then I got a text as well, and my true reaction was, ‘Is class canceled?’ I just wanted to know is class still on? I don’t study [at CIA], but it’s on the way.”

Classes and activities were only cancelled for CIA, with CWRU remaining in operation as nearby buildings and businesses were evacuated such as “Triangle 2, Cleveland Hearing and Speech Building, Spartie Mart, Uptown businesses [and] Sweet Kiddles daycare.”

Another student, first-year Yvette Uwineza, expressed more concern with the alert: “I was in Chris Butler’s math class, and I was shocked because I didn’t know that [kind of] thing happens in university, and I was scared. I just tried to stay on the Quad.”

At 1:16 p.m., the all clear was given with a final statement: “​​Multiple agencies responded to the bomb threat at Cleveland Institute of Art. After evacuating the buildings and having CWRU and other agencies’ K9 units sweep and clear the buildings, they determined there is no active threat at this time to the community. All clear.”

CWRU’s Public Safety Division told The Observer that the CIA admissions office received the threat via an email then promptly contacted the University Circle Police Department (UCPD), which spurred the precautionary response.

Multiple agencies worked to address the threat, including UCPD and the City of Cleveland Police Department; the following K-9 units also responded: Regional Transit Authority, Cleveland State University Police Department and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.

Some news stations have speculated about the threat, suggesting that it may have been connected to a nationwide hoax encouraged  by a social media trend. Multiple universities in Maryland, Delaware, Texas and Michigan also received bomb threats, with CIA being one of over a dozen nationwide. The schools that received bomb threats ranged from large public universities to small Historically Black colleges and universities.

When asked if the involved organizations believed that this threat was part of this nationwide ruse, the university said that “The follow-up investigation will be handled by UCPD and federal agencies to determine if the incident at CIA was related to those experienced at other universities Tuesday.”