When was the last time a bomb threat was followed up with an actual bomb in the US? Maybe it's time to stop blindly evacuating buildings in response to anonymous messages.
But really, what you're complaining about is CYA (cover your ass) security. It's a lot easier for the person in charge to decide to clear out the building, and answer to a bit of grumbling with "just doing my job to keep you people safe" than it is to deal with the (extremely unlikely) fallout that would come from ignoring a real bomb.
Not sure if it's CYA security or just the immensely aggravating ease with which a group of people can be terrorized by an anonymous message that the poster you are responding to is complaining about.
I mean, that is the Essenes of a bomb scare as opposed to a bomb threat or an actual bomb, no?
Most people don't believe a bomb will actually blow up or something on campus. I think what freaks people out is notion that the person(s) making the bomb threats are trying to observe the patterns and behaviors of how people react during an evacuation.
Pitt has the tallest educational building in the US (Cathedral of Learning - which has had 14 bomb threats), plus many other buildings on campus are rather tall too. I cannot begin to imagine how exhausting these bomb threats have been to the police. Many people don't want to evacuate the buildings either. But what if some lunatic takes advantage of how desensitized and relax people are becoming to go a shooting spree... that is the more scary thought.
Honestly it seems like person(s) making the bomb threats becomes more agressive with the threats when the university makes a public statement about it or when the police think they've caught someone or have a lead. A part of me wonders if the university might provoke the person(s) behind this to do something more extreme if the bomb threats started to be ignored.
I can imagine an awful fallout if a bomb went off, people died, and then later it was revealed that there was prior warning. Better safe than sorry works here, I think.
If you are uncertain if a threat was ever called in for either, how are those answers to my question? I was specifically asking about threats that were first called in, then followed up upon. To the best of my knowledge, neither of those qualify.
Just because those didn't come with threats doesn't mean all attacks come without threats. Also it doesn't prove that all threats won't be followed by an attack.
The unibomber is one example. He would send mail bombs if newspapers didn't heed his threats and publish his ramblings.
When they're doing it for political reasons, not always. Blowing up a building gets you plenty of publicity, and it's a lot more positive if no one was killed. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_bombing
