by Amy Davis
News Editor
There was no explosion yesterday in the M.D. Anderson Library, where University of Houston Police officers were called to the scene around noon to investigate a bomb threat written on a piece of paper and taped to the back of a computer.
The note that read, "There's a bomb in this computer" caught the eye of "a library staff member who was making her regular rounds" at approximately 11:20 a.m., UH Police Department Lt. Skip Durant said.
The library's assistant dean for bibliographic and access services, Linda Thompson, said when the note was discovered, "the police were called, and they responded promptly."
Although the building was not evacuated, Thompson said such measures "certainly did indeed enter (our) minds." However, she said they took the advice of officials from UHPD, the Houston Police Department and the Houston Fire Department and did not announce the threat.
Durant said contacting the HFD was "probably standard procedure that was followed for precautionary measures," and they, in turn, probably called HPD to simply "make notification to the city."
When UHPD officers arrived, however, the note was found to be a hoax. "With the current technology available, there is not a bomb that has been made that could fit into a computer," Durant said, explaining the reason the report did not cause further commotion at the library.
Durant said the case is considered inactive because of its nature.
"When we receive a call for a bomb threat, we have specific procedures to follow," Durant said. "We go through it step-by-step because we take all bomb threats seriously."
But, he said, "there's no leads to follow upon as to who may have written the note.
"Certain laws fit certain situations, depending on what the circumstances are," Durant said.
However, he said this case does not exactly fit any of the penal codes in the Texas Criminal Laws handbook. Detective Roger Wedgeworth of the Harris County Sheriff's Department's homicide division said anyone writing a threatening note of that nature could be charged with making a "terroristic threat," a Class A misdemeanor. Durant agreed, adding that the crime is punishable by a $4000 fine, confinement in jail for up to one year, or both.