Stanelle: bomb threat meant to disrupt campus

In an interview with Lake Country Today, Georgia College Police Chief Brett Stanelle discusses the bomb scare that occurred Wednesday morning and what led up to the arrest of a suspect.

“Right at about eight o’clock, we received notification from a manager over at Sodexo that they had received a message via text that articulated an active threat,” Brett Stanelle, Georgia College Public Safety Chief said. “This was a multifaceted threat. [The message] indicated there were some homemade explosive devices. And that if we didn’t take the the threat seriously, that there might be other acts of violence that followed.”

Officers first searched the building for anything out of place both inside and out. Stanelle said very few people were inside the building at the time of the evacuation. “There was one meeting downstairs, the breakfast crowd was fairly well concluding at the Max so it was predominantly going to be Sodexo staff.”

Among the food service workers was 28-year-old Wilson Harper Jr. who authorities say sent the threatening text message. According to Stanelle, Harper was coming on duty shortly after the message was sent. Agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations questioned him and determined there was probable cause for his arrest.

“I didn’t interview [Harper] personally, I’ve had some conversations with the agents that did and I feel fairly confident…that the intent was to disrupt operations,” Stanelle said.

The campus community was not informed of the situation for a couple of hours which the chief believes was the best option.

“We did not want to create a false panic,” Stanelle said. “At that time, everything was indicating this was an effort to disrupt operations, we had no factors that were escalating a response beyond what we did in an abundance of caution.”

Stanelle said when the dining hall, known as “The Max,” reopened for lunch the “faithful diners” were waiting as usual. He’s proud that the suspect didn’t succeed in shutting down the campus.