Evergreen State College in Washington state remains on lockdown Friday following a threat from an anonymous caller early Thursday morning.
"Yes, I am on my way to Evergreen now with a .44 Magnum. I am going to execute as many people on that campus as I can get a hold of," a caller told a 911 dispatcher around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday. "You have that, what’s going on here, you communist scumbag?" The caller then hung up.
Pressures have been rising at the school since mid-May, when black students protested against racial discrimination from college police. A group of protesters told The Olympian a week ago that "What started out as anti-black comments on social media has turned into the dismissal of the rights of students and femmes of color, physical violence by police, and false sentencing of students protesting."
Another controversy began over an event called the "Day of Absence," an Evergreen tradition in which minority students leave the school for day to have a discussion on race and equality, according to The Washington Post. This year, the school asked white students and faculty to leave campus for a day instead, so minority students could hold the event on campus. A professor called this "an act of oppression," leading students to call for his firing.
Given the high tensions at the school over racism, many speculated that white supremacists had threatened the school. But Vice President of College Relations Sandra Kaiser said she believes the threat was not connected to recent campus events.
“There’s nothing that I know of that connects these things directly, but of course, we live in troubled times, and you got to take public safety as a top priority for everybody,” Kaiser said during a news conference according to Kiro7.
Over 4,500 students have been notified of the threat, and had to shelter in their on-campus residences or leave campus.
No matter your opinion on the protests, one thing is certain—We all hope that students and staff at Evergreen stay safe.