TRIPwire, 3 February 2022
On 31 January and 1 February 2022, at least 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the country were targeted by bomb threats, resulting in class cancelations and shelter-in-place orders. A similar bomb threat campaign took place earlier in January when nine HBCUs were targeted. During one of the 31 January incidents, the Daytona Beach Police Department responded to Bethune-Cookman University in Florida after an anonymous caller identifying himself as a member of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division claimed that there were seven duffel bags with IEDs with C-4 hidden around the perimeter of the school, which would be detonated. The caller also claimed that a gunman would open fire on campus around lunchtime that day. No explosive devices were found at any of the campuses. The FBI and ATF launched investigations into the incidents, and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the incidents as potential hate crimes. On 2 February, the FBI announced that it had identified six “tech-savvy” juvenile suspects who had used sophisticated methods, including spoofing phone numbers, to disguise the source of the threats, which appeared to be racially motivated. Thus far, no arrests have been made. The investigations are ongoing.
