Man arrested in bomb hoax at Louisiana university
7/22/2014NEW ORLEANS, July 22 (Reuters) - A 30-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a bomb hoax last week at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette that forced an evacuation of the sprawling campus and triggered a large-scale police response, authorities said today.
Devin Haywood, a Louisiana resident who is not a student at the school, was arrested late on Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Lafayette, 120 miles (190 km) west of New Orleans, state police Master Trooper Brooks David said.
Charges against Haywood were set to be announced by federal prosecutors later today, David said.
The incident last Wednesday began with a threat called in to a television station at about 5:30 a.m. warning of a bomb in a park near the school and an unspecified number of other explosive devices on campus, authorities said.
Police responding to the threat found a suspicious device in or near a garbage can in a park adjacent to the school that turned out to be a phony bomb, David said.
Classes were canceled for the 5,500 students attending summer school. Another several hundred incoming freshmen and other visitors unexpectedly spent much of the day off campus.
The school normally has an enrollment of about 17,000 students.