Officials investigated a small black tarp, cinder blocks, bricks and trash in front of the "Covered Wagon" statue behind Gaylord Hall. Propped next to the objects was a sign that read, "Ignore this like you do genocide. 28,000 and counting. Silence is complicity."
Bomb squad members probed the scene before removing and throwing the tarp and materials in a nearby dumpster, minutes after OU sent an alert issuing an all clear at 3:25 p.m. Officials pulled down the police tape blocking off a portion of Asp Avenue around 3:20 p.m.
According to OU Daily reporters on the scene, the Hazardous Devices Unit, a police unit that conducts all investigations into reports of hazardous devices or materials, initially arrived around 1:57 p.m. and sent a tactical robot to investigate the package before HDU members approached it. OU Police Department officers evacuated the nearby area and expanded the initial perimeter blocked with police tape out of an "abundance of caution."
Gaylord College was first evacuated around 1 p.m. after reports of a suspicious package. OU-Norman sent out an alert at 1:33 p.m. cautioning students and faculty to avoid the area near Asp Avenue east of Gaylord Hall.
"We're taking precautions in a situation like this and making sure we have the alarm going and have people out of the building. We're waiting until word that things are safe to know if we can go back in," Gaylord College interim Dean David Craig told OU Daily after the initial evacuation.
At 1:30 p.m., OUPD’s public information officer Chase Brooks told OU Daily they were cordoning off the area out of an abundance of caution because of a suspicious package, adding some OUPD bomb technicians had arrived, but they were awaiting the main bomb squad detail.
Julia Manipella, a recent OU graduate, was attending the Creative Media Marketplace event inside the Gaylord auditorium when the building was evacuated. She said someone told them they were going to pull the fire alarms to evacuate the building, instructing those inside to exit to the side of the building.
Brooks said OUPD got a call around 12:30 p.m. about a suspicious package placed near a statue at Gaylord Hall.
“We had a couple of officers come out and examine it,” Brooks said.
Brooks said he wasn’t going to share details of the circumstances surrounding the package, but it “warranted enough suspicion that we called out our partners at (NPD) and had their bomb squad come out and take a look.”
He said the bomb squad found no explosive devices around the display.
OUPD did not take questions about possible criminal charges.
“I want to thank everybody. The (NPD) guys that came out and helped (and) OUPD,” Brooks said. “They were (a) tremendous help today in making this go as smoothly as it could.”
OU wrote in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, OUPD took steps to ensure campus was safe and thanked NPD for their assistance. The university takes all threats to campus safety seriously, according the statement.
On Friday, Feb. 16, OUPD received a call concerning a suspicious package placed near a statue near Gaylord Hall. OUPD dispatched officers to examine the package and called in the Norman Police Department. (1/3)
— Univ. of Oklahoma (@UofOklahoma) February 16, 2024
This story was edited by Peggy Dodd, Ismael Lele and Karoline Leonard. Mary Ann Livingood copy edited this story.
