St. Francis College was briefly thrown into turmoil on Monday when cops rushed to the Remsen Street campus after a bomb threat — but the “threat” turned out to be nothing but song lyrics posted on a student’s Facebook page.
Administrators at the Brooklyn Heights college, which is near Court Street, notified police on Monday they were being inundated with calls about a student who allegedly made threats online that he would “bomb the school” at 11 am.
Cops quickly interviewed the 20-year-old student — and just as quickly realized that the reference to a “bomb” was merely in a song that he posted as his “status update” on the social networking site, popular with students and even with middle-aged college administrators.
The rumors were still flying well after the police had defused the situation, and students were still looking for answers.
“Someone doesn’t like St. Francis and posted that they were going to bomb the school,” said student Maria Olvarado.
Other students had heard rumors of the student planning to “shoot up” a classroom, but cops said that there was never a risk.
One school official said that parents, rather than students who used Facebook, had called about the posting.
“But we never needed to evacuate the building or anything because police said there was no imminent threat,” said Richard Relkin, spokesman for the school. “Apparently when the [call went out to police], someone labeled it as a bomb threat. There was no bomb threat.”
Relkin wouldn’t release the name of the song or the student in question — and the brief incident is a cautionary tale in this digital age, an era when stray remarks on a personal web journal can be read by people all over the world, or at 1 Police Plaza.
So perhaps it’s unwise to print the lyrics of our favorite song, “Time Bomb” by Dismemberment Plan:
I am a time bomb
I only live in that one moment in which you die
It’s not right
It’s not what I wanted then
But you know and I know there’s no going back.
No bomb threat is intended by the above verse.
