LSU bomb threat: An arrest is made; motive unknown

There’s an arrest but no apparent motive in the bomb threat that led authorities to evacuate the Louisiana State University campus earlier this week.

Authorities said William Bouvay Jr., 43, of Baton Rouge, admitted making the phone call, according to the Associated Press. LSU Police Capt. Corey Lalonde told the news service that Bouvay was not a student at the school and does not seem to have a connection to the campus. A motive is not known at this time, he said.

The school received a threatening 911 phone call at 10:32 a.m. local time Monday. The caller claimed that there were several bombs stashed on campus, all rigged to go off in about two hours, according to a statement posted on LSU’s website.

The campus has about 30,000 students, professors and employees, and university officials quickly sounded the alarm. That sent thousands of people spilling out into the streets and jamming traffic. Bomb-squad officers with explosives-sniffing dogs searched the campus but found nothing.

Authorities traced the 911 call to a cellphone that could only make emergency calls.

“Investigators were able to determine a GPS location from which the call was made,” according to LSU, and authorities descended on the spot. “The area of the call’s origin was searched by investigators. ... During questioning, Bouvay admitted to having called 911 and making the bomb threat and disclosed the location of the phone that was used to make the call,” the university statement said.

The threatening message came amid a spate of bomb threats -- at the University of Texas at Austin, North Dakota State University and Hiram College in Ohio -- leading some to suspect that the threats were linked.

“We don’t believe at this point that there is any connection to the bomb threats at other universities,” Lalonde told the Associated Press.

Bouvay will be charged with communicating false information of a planned bombing, the news service reported.

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