The University of Chicago has canceled classes and activities for Monday at its Hyde Park campus due to an FBI warning of an “online threat of gun violence.”
Late on Sunday, the university posted a notice of the threat to its website, written by university president Robert J. Zimmer.
FBI counterterrorism officials informed the university that an “unknown individual posted an online threat of gun violence” against the university that specifically mentioned “the campus quad.” The threat says the school might be targeted on Monday morning at 10 AM.
“Based on the FBI’s assessment of this threat and recent tragic events at other campuses across the country,” the school president says on the university website, “we have decided in consultation with federal and local law enforcement officials, to exercise caution by canceling all classes and activities on the Hyde Park campus through midnight on Monday.”
The university informed all non-medical faculty, students, and non-essential staff to stay away from the Hyde Park campus on Monday or to remain indoors if they are already on campus.
Officials are closing the Hyde Park campus, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, the University libraries, the Quadrangle Club, and other campus facilities. The University of Chicago Medical Center will remain open to patients, but security will be tightened throughout the facilities.
Chicago police officials, when reached by phone, didn’t have any more information on the threat.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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