DuBois House evacuated after bomb threats

Racially harassing calls received and GREGORY MONTANARO Several students who live in DuBois College House received racially harassing phone calls and bomb threats late Sunday night, forcing the evacuation of the building, police said. University Police was called at about 1 a.m., and students were evacuated from the building while it was searched for "unusual devices, packages or things that didn't belong," University Police Commissioner John Kuprevich said. No bomb was found. Kuprevich added there was also a "preliminary" report of one call to Stouffer College House which was "also racially oriented." "There were a number of students – at this time we've identified approximately seven – who received calls that were threatening and intimidating and racially derogatory," Kuprevich said. "We consider this extremely serious, and we've taken steps to increase the structural and personal safety of the people in the dorm." He added University Police will press criminal charges if the person or persons connected with the incident are caught. After the evacuation, the DuBois House staff instituted a short-term ban on non-residents in the dorm, posting a notice on the front door to detail the restriction. According to the notice, non-residents are not allowed to enter without being signed in by a DuBois House resident. Kuprevich said this was a house-instituted policy and not a University Police request. College senior Jahmae Harris was one of the students who received a derogatory phone call. "He was rude – he called me a nigger and said they were going to kill niggers," Harris said last night. "[He said,] 'We're going to blow up the nigger dorm tonight'." Harris, managing editor of The Vision, said the caller knew of her position on the newspaper and referred to it as "that nigger paper." She said the caller, whom she described as a white male, said "Die, nigger, die" and then hung up the phone. Harris said the experience was very disturbing. "Basically, I wanted to hurt him," she said. "All it does is it just escalates everything. It makes it horrible to be on this campus." Philadelphia Police Det. William Johnson said the case was being handled by the Conflict Resolution Unit of Philadelphia Police, which could not be reached last night. Assistant Dean of Residence for DuBois House David Biggs said last night he held an emergency meeting with the dorm's House Council to discuss the matter. "I was just meeting with the House Council to see how we would deal with this and how to make sure that you're informed," he said. It is not clear what the House Council decided. Kuprevich said he could not comment on further steps that will be taken by University Police or DuBois House. "We're not going to release any information related to the investigation, or steps we've taken to increase security, because we feel it may be detrimental to the investigation," he said.