This is a developing story, and may be updated in accordance with new information
Around 5:30 PM on Sunday evening, armed police and security flooded Wasserstein Hall in response to a false threat of violence. The caller claimed that there was a bomb in or around Harvard Law School and that a person was walking the campus brandishing a firearm.
It is not clear who was called in order to initiate last night’s emergency response . The call originated from a computer-generated number, which helped investigators determine that the call was a prank.
“There were multiple police officers clustered in the halls of Wasserstein,” said Irene Ameena, HLS 25’, who was at a meeting nearby when emergency services arrived. “The sounds of their walkie talkies could be heard through the door of our study room.”
Edward Chung, HLS 24’, who was also on the scene, expressed concern that the authorities “created a particularly unsafe environment” by having “heavily armed police” in the building considering the “history of Black students being swatted without reasoning on Harvard’s campus.”
Swatting is to prank call emergency services in order to report a serious criminal threat in order to endanger the subject of the call. In a number of high profile examples over the couple decades, swatting has resulted in injury and death of a number of people in the US. In Massachusetts, intentionally making a false report tot the police is a misdemeanor and carries a fine of $100-$500.
Last April, a swatting attack of Leverett House resulted in “four Black undergraduates ordered out of their rooms at gunpoint” by HUPD officers wearing riot gear. The affair prompted a letter signed by “45 Black Student Organizations and Supporters” criticizing the university’s failure to “protect its Black community’s emotional and physical wellbeing in the aftermath of such trauma.”
A person familiar with the matter stated that this was the third instance of swatting on campus since Christmas Eve. Ameena was “shocked” to hear that this was the third swatting instance within the last month, and “she was surprised [she] hadn’t heard anything about this before.”
Another source stated that this was only the second instance of swatting on campus since Christmas Eve. They claimed that on Saturday, December 24, a person from a computer-generated number called Cambridge police and also stated that a pipe bomb was inside Wasserstein Hall and a person was walking the campus with an AR-15. The call came in around 10:30 AM.
This incident follows several controversies that have drawn national attention to Harvard University and Harvard Law School. The doxing of several Harvard students in autumn amidst the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the widespread criticism of University President Claudine Gay, PhD 98′, culminating in her resignation earlier this month, and the filing of a lawsuit accusing Harvard University of fostering an antisemitic environment on January 7.
Any individual with information regarding the incident should call Harvard Police Department at 617-496-2700 or submit a tip online at this link.