One of the decisions we struggle with at the newspaper is how to report on bomb scares, and even sometimes whether to report on them at all.
Almost always, bomb threats are nothing but a hoax, a stunt carried out by some immature or twisted person who gets a kick out of disrupting or unnerving people at a school, a shopping center or some other locale where large numbers gather. According to the U.S. Justice Department, at least 90 percent of the time when a threat is made, there is no bomb or the “bomb” is a fake.
If the newspaper makes a big splash over a bomb threat, it gives the person perpetuating the hoax the attention he or she is seeking, and may also encourage copycats to do the same.
Also, it’s unlikely that our reporting on a bomb threat will protect anyone, since it’s highly improbable that a real bomber would announce plans ahead of time. In one 12-year period tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there were 1,055 incidents of bombs being placed on school premises. In only 14 of those cases — 1 percent of the time — was a warning delivered to school or other authorities.
As a general rule, we let our coverage be dictated by the actions of those who receive the bomb threat. If a school or place of business is evacuated or shut down, as Mississippi Valley State University was last week, then the reaction itself becomes news, even if it pans out — as is overwhelmingly likely — that there was nothing to the threat.
All of this raises the question of whether MVSU, with the apparent encouragement of law enforcement, overreacted by calling off school for a day and a half, emptying the campus and moving one set of basketball games and postponing another set.
I haven’t seen the letter that contained the first bomb threat, nor have I heard what was said in the phoned-in warning the next day. The literature on bomb threats says the more specific the warning — and written threats seem to be especially worrisome — the more credence the warning should receive.
There must have been something in either or both threats that spooked authorities, especially since the university, which had already taken some fairly serious precautions, was urged by investigators to step them up even more so.
I sympathize with the university’s president, Dr. William Bynum Jr., and other officials at the school. They were put in a no-win situation.
By taking the threat seriously, the result was a major disruption and distraction to the school week, an extra-long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend for students and staff, a disappointment for the school’s basketball fans who were unlikely to travel to Lorman to catch Saturday’s relocated games (although the plan is to make it up to them later in the season), and an untold expense that all of these precautions and interruptions created.
If, however, school officials had dismissed the threat as a hoax and simply had gone about business as normal, then they risked a huge liability on the miniscule chance that this might be the real thing.
The unfortunate consequence, of course, of the university erring on the side of caution is that whoever perpetrated the scare got just the vicarious thrill he or she desired: large amounts of attention from the school and in the media, and the satisfaction of bringing a major institution to a virtual halt. Behavior that gets rewarded, no matter how deplorable the behavior might be, often gets repeated. It would not surprise me if more bomb threats were to follow until the perpetrator or perpetrators get caught, or until they tire of this perverse game.
Or get scared by the risks they are taking. There are stiff penalties for those who initiate a bomb scare. The state punishment alone can carry up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Separate federal laws for bomb hoaxes, depending on which statute is applied, can carry a prison term of up to 10 years upon conviction.
Catching the perpetrators is not easy, though. I couldn’t find what percent of bomb hoaxes result in arrests, but I would bet it’s small.
