Anonymous Jodel threat to “shoot up KJ” prompts campus-wide shelter-in-place order
by Nicole Greenberg ’25, News Editor
On the evening of Sunday, April 16, a post on the anonymous social media app Jodel indicated a desire to “shoot up ” Kirner-Johnson (KJ). After being alerted of this post, the Hamilton College Emergency Response Team (HERT) issued a shelter-in-place emergency alert at 5:56 p.m. Those on campus were instructed to “move inside a building, lock doors, stay away from windows, and remain where you are until you receive further instruction or the ‘all clear’ message.”
According to Frank Coots, director of Hamilton Campus Safety, 911 was contacted, and the first round of messages was sent out within five minutes of receiving a student’s concern about the Jodel post. Coots relayed that Campus Safety worked with the “Kirkland Police Department, the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Police, the FBI, and the Department of Environmental Conservation police…it was about 20 officers on campus.” He further explained that law enforcement had “to formulate a plan. The safest thing at the exact moment of receiving the threat was getting you guys sheltered in place…our next move was to ensure that the building was secure and that any threat would be neutralized.” The FBI entered rooms in KJ to search and clear students before establishing that there were no weapons in the building. After clearing KJ, officers searched Schambach, McEwen, List, and KTSA. At 9:23 p.m., the “all clear” message was sent to inform the community that the shelter-in-place was lifted and that “Law Enforcement has secured KJ and all buildings in the area.”
As each building was searched, an investigative operation occurred to determine who posted the threat on Jodel. According to Coots, a team reached out to Jodel and several individuals on campus to ascertain who made the threat. Coots explained that “students came forward” to identify the poster, a crucial piece of the investigation. Coots was impressed at students’ willingness to put their personal relationships aside for the good of the campus community: “I just think that says volumes about our student body.”
As a result of this investigation, Hamilton College student Peter Ashby Howard III ’25 was arrested. According to New York State Police, he has been charged with Making a Threat of Mass Harm, a class “B” misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to 90 days in jail, fines, one-year probation, community service, and an order of protection if convicted.
Howard was arrested in his dorm room in South Residence Hall on Sunday night. According to chair of the Emergency Response Team Jeff Landry, when Howard returned to campus early the next morning, Campus Safety took him to the Dean of Students Office. He then packed a bag with his belongings and was taken to the Campus Safety office until they could get in touch with his family.
According to an email from President Wippman that was sent to the Hamilton Community on the afternoon of April 17, Howard has been placed on interim suspension, which prohibits him from the Hamilton campus or any events, until a full hearing takes place in the “near future.” When Coots addressed Monday evening’s Student Assembly meeting, he shared that when Howard returns to campus for the hearing, he will be accompanied by Campus Safety officers at all times.
After Sunday night’s incident, the campus community voiced several concerns about the procedure throughout the shelter-in-place. Primarily, some students noted an apparent inconsistency in the school’s messaging throughout the event. While previous text messages indicated a threat of an armed assailant, a text message was sent via Everbridge at 6:27 p.m. which read, “Hamilton College Emergency Alert: an armed assailant is on campus. Shelter-in-place, stay inside, lock doors, silence phones…Reply with YES to confirm receipt,” even though an armed assailant was not on campus. Elizabeth Oakes ’25 shared that this message escalated her fear and sent her into a panic. Additionally, two emails sent by HERT, one at 6:27 p.m. and the other at 6:35 p.m., used the subject line “ACTIVE SHOOTER,” though there was not an active shooter on campus.
At Monday night’s Student Assembly meeting, Jeff Landry, the chair of the Hamilton College Emergency Response Team, said this messaging was a mistake and should not have happened, and he apologized that it did. He explained that the College uses Everbridge for their emergency messaging, a system that uses templates to send texts quickly. On Sunday night, the template chosen was not accurate to the situation taking place. Landry says that in the future, the templates can be edited to reflect the circumstances most accurately. Frank Coots noted that the inaccurate text message “caused a lot of stress and it was because we…didn’t fully look at what we were sending before we hit the transmit button. What happened is that we made a mistake. We did correct it, but probably not nearly as quickly as we should have.”
Some students also noted they were not sure how severe the situation was at first. Jameson Mannix ’26 said, “I did not get the text saying there was an armed assailant, so I did not realize how intense the situation was.” Gabby Nakab ’25 shared that she expected more than an email or phone call about an emergency of this caliber.
When informed about students’ confusion, Coots admitted, “We were asked about the audible siren that [we] have on campus. I dropped the ball on that one. That should’ve been immediate for the people who were outside. Probably within the hour of the notification is when we activated the siren… I know it was less than an hour, but less than a minute is what it should’ve been.”
Students also expressed concerns about the security of facilities in academic buildings. One group of students sheltered in place in KJ 102, a classroom where the door does not lock and opens outward (so it cannot be barricaded from the inside). Additionally, the desks in this classroom do not move, meaning they could not be used to blockade the door in any capacity. Anoushka Aswin ’25 reflected, “it was scary to be in a classroom so close to the front of the targeted building where there was no way for us to prevent the door from opening. We hid under the desks, but if someone wanted to enter the room, there was nothing we could do to stop them.”
In a press conference on Monday afternoon, Frank Coots explained that the school is working to secure academic buildings, but it will be a “slow process.” In an interview with The Spectator, he also shared that after a shelter-in-place drill this fall, “we got feedback with locks. And it wasn’t just KJ 102. There’s other buildings and other rooms on this campus with locks that were installed maybe when my grandparents were little… And again, Facilities knows about it. They’re in the process of fixing it.”
The Spectator reached out to Associate Vice President for Facilities and Planning Michael Klapmayer about this issue. Klapmayer shared, “The College previously identified this issue and evaluated all academic spaces on campus in need of interior locks. Necessary hardware was ordered early this semester and is scheduled for delivery by the end of next week. Facilities Management will begin installing the new locksets across campus as soon as they arrive.”
Other students shared that they felt they needed more preparation for the shelter-in-place. Hana Dolan ’25 explained, “The reason why I felt prepared in the moment was because of the drills we had done at my high school, but I don’t think Hamilton sufficiently trains us, or our professors, in what to do during an event like this.” In the fall of this academic year, Hamilton did have a shelter-in-place drill. Speaking to that experience, Dolan said, “It wasn’t until someone brought it up in class on Tuesday that I remembered we’d had a shelter-in-place drill in the fall…I think part of why I had forgotten about the drill in the fall is because it didn’t feel like a real drill at all. I can especially see that now having experienced a real shelter in place, whereas the ones at my high school more realistically mirrored the real environment.”
When asked in an interview whether the College will implement large-scale shelter-in-place drills or assemblies to explain procedures, Frank Coots said the school does not have plans to do so. He said that after an incident five or six years ago, the Student Assembly put together a Town Hall to address the possibility of date-rape drugs being used in Clinton, and if students want to organize an event similar to that town hall, they could do so. Coots shared, “It would be training only in the sense of a lecture — we’re not going to say okay, we pull the fire alarm, now scatter and go do what you’re supposed to do.”
Student Assembly President Nicole Soret ’25 explained the organization’s communication with the administration. She explained, “The Assembly attempted to get classes canceled through a ‘Request for Class Cancellation and Other Accommodations’ because we understood and also experienced the gravity and fear of the threat from Sunday night. While the request was denied and we wholly disagree with that decision, we asked President Wippman and some of the deans to come and speak at our next meeting about their choice to deny the request and other choices they made regarding their response to the threat.”
Since the event on Sunday evening, classes and events on campus have, for the most part, resumed as usual. In an email to the community on Monday morning, President Wippman wrote, “Several of you have written to ask that the College cancel classes Monday and Tuesday. We understand the concerns you have raised and the stress and anxiety created by last night’s threat of an active shooter and police presence on campus.” Rather than officially canceling classes, the Dean of Faculty urged professors to be flexible during this time and left decisions up to individual faculty members.
The events of Sunday have left the Hamilton community uncertain about their safety on campus. Students have expressed that updates to safety procedures, more secure facilities, and improved communication from President Wippman and the administration would make them feel more protected going forward as they cope with the effects of Sunday’s incident. As of now, the Office of the President has not publicly committed to any concrete steps to directly address the community’s concerns.
