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Bakersfield College was evacuated early Tuesday after the school received a bomb threat.
No one was injured during the evacuation, which lasted more than an hour. Authorities did not find any evidence of a bomb.
A campuswide evacuation was put into effect by BC President Dr. Sandra Serrano. Students and faculty were told to go to the soccer field, but many also gathered in the Free Speech area before being told to move to the parking lot near the Fine Arts building.
Bakersfield Police Department Officer John Jamison is the officer assigned to the BC campus.
“The police department policy is to let the administration make the call (about evacuation),” he said.
BPD Detective Mary DeGeare said that the threat was made at approximately 8:40 a.m. and that the caller said that the bomb was scheduled to go off at 9 a.m.
Many students were told to leave the buildings by staff.
Student Cody Slayton was in the Campus Center.
“We had to get out of buildings,” he said. “Some crazy lady told me to leave.”
Campus police Sgt. Jess Soto said that classified staff and faculty were the ones who looked for a bomb in the buildings.
“We make a sweep of the whole campus, and look for suspicious items,” he said.
Soto said that no members of the Bakersfield Police Department were called. He said that there is a procedure when a bomb threat occurs.
“We take the report, and evaluate the information,” Soto said. “We give it over to (Serrano), and after reviewing that with the first response team, she will make the decision about whether or not to evacuate.”
BC Homecoming queen Diana Trigo also was in the Campus Center in the cafeteria.
“It’s very frightening. I don’t feel safe here anymore,” she said.
Interim Dean of Students Charles Guerrero said that everyone did well with the evacuation.
“These days we have to be overly cautious,” he said.
Jamison also said that everybody needs to be more aware today. He said that students should feel safe, even though the world has changed.
“I think we are living in a different world today after Sept. 11,” Jamison said. “I don’t think there are any rules.”
He added that he is only in his third week here on campus and he is still getting used to everything, but he said the evacuation went quite well.
“I thought the administration did an excellent job. Unfortunately, it was raining,” he said. “But everybody was back in an hour or so.”
While the situation was declared over at 10:10 a.m., many students and staff were unaware of that until later.
Michele Bresso, director of marketing and public relations for BC, also said that the evacuation went well.
A fire alarm sounded at approximately at 9:20 a.m., adding to the confusion. Bresso alluded to the fact that sometimes a fire alarm is set off so that students can evacuate buildings more quickly.
“The buildings were evacuated promptly,” she said. “There were no stragglers, people moved to the parameters. Our mission is to ensure student safety. As an employee, I feel safe.”
Even though only 9:30 and 10 a.m. classes were canceled, many students left the campus and didn’t return in the afternoon.
Students and staff were not the only ones who had to stop working. Construction crews also left campus. Don James of Alphie Construction said that his crew was about to pour some concrete near Student Services.
“But now that we have a terrorist threat (we can’t do that),” James said.
ASBC President Sumeet Batth was in her office having breakfast when the threat occurred.
“I think I’m kind of numb,” Batth said.