Hoax ‘massacre’ threat at Warwick University prompts armed police response

[dutchman]

A hoax ‘massacre’ threat at the University of Warwick sparked panic across the Coventry campus today (Wednesday).

Alarms were raised last night after an anonymous post on internet forum circleboard.org warned of a ‘massacre’ in a lecture theatre at noon.

Anonymous user ‘funnycat!Dominicxhw’ posted on a thread discussing FBI intelligence claiming Warwick student Dominic Zeidler would carry out the alleged attack.

Armed officers from West Midlands Police attended the campus in marked and unmarked cars, with eye witnesses claiming they waited outside the Science Concourse building with members of the university’s security team for around an hour.

The named student, Dominic Zeidler, was quickly contacted and found to be nowhere near campus – in another part of the country.

A West Midlands Police spokesperson said: “Officers – some of them armed – were deployed to the campus today (February 17) as a precaution and for reassurance.

“No arrests were made in relation to the threat and enquiries into the hoax message are currently ongoing.”

Peter Dunn, press officer at the University said armed officers had attended the campus in search of ‘an individual’ they wished to speak to.

He added: “The circumstances they wished to speak to them about were not related to any of the national security matters being investigated by UK police forces.

“The police left the campus after making contact with the individual who was in fact not on campus but in a totally different region of the UK.”