BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Police arrested a Baton Rouge man in the bomb threat that led to the evacuation of the LSU campus earlier this week but don’t believe he is connected to threats made against three other universities recently.
William Bouvay Jr., 42, was taken into custody Tuesday night after an investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies, LSU Police Capt. Cory Lalonde said.
Bouvay was not an LSU student and appeared to have no connec– tion to the campus, Lalonde said. Officials refused to speculate on a motive, saying only that it wasn’t a national security issue.
Col. Mike Edmonson, superin- tendent of state police, referred to the phone call as a prank and said the “foolishness of an individual” affected thousands of students, parents and workers who were forced to evacuate.
Similar bomb threats were made last week at college cam- puses in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio.
“We don’t believe at this point that there is any connection to the bomb threats at other universi- ties,” Lalonde said.
Lalonde said police tracked Bouvay down after determining the 911 call Monday came from a deactivated cellphone that could only make emergency calls. Inves- tigators were able to pinpoint the location of the cell phone Tuesday and searched homes in the Baton Rouge neighborhood before iden- tifying Bouvay as a suspect, he said.
“Upon questioning, he admitted to making the phone call,” Lalonde said.
The caller claimed multiple
bombs would detonate on campus within two hours, but did not say where, authorities said, so bomb- squad officers with explosives- sniffing dogs were called in to search all buildings.
As with the threats made last week at the University of Texas, North Dakota State University and Hiram College, the search failed to turn up explosives.
According to police documents, the caller said, “Yes, I planted three bombs at LSU’s school cam- pus,” and added, “This is not a joke.” Authorities believe he was the only person involved in the Baton Rouge scare.
Bouvay will be charged with communicating false information of a planned bombing and could face other charges, authorities said.
