Harford Community College was open for business Wednesday, just hours after an unspecified threat to students and staff locked down the campus for most of Tuesday night, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office.
No evidence of such threats being carried out was ever found, Cristie Kahler, spokesperson for the sheriff's office, said Wednesday.
"As of this time there has been no reports of shots fired, we haven't identified anybody with any guns or things like that. Our investigators of our criminal investigation division and our intelligence section are running out the leads, running out all leads with phone numbers and things like that and trying to figure out who called in this threat. As of right now, no one has been identified," Maj. William Davis, of the sheriff's office Patrol Operations Bureau, said at a media briefing in the parking lot of nearby Oak Grove Baptist Church around 11:30 p.m.
A telephone threat had been received at Bel Air Police Department that "an individual was threatening to do shooting and possibly some bombing at the college," Davis said.
The sheriff's office was notified at 7:45 p.m. about the call made to Bel Air, Kahler said.
The Sheriff's Office took the threat seriously, Davis said, and with the help of Maryland State Police and the Harford Community College Department of Public Safety began assessing the threat.
"Once we were on scene, we determined the college should go into lockdown. Everybody was advised to lock themselves in the classroom and find a place to shelter in place," he said.
Davis said the threat was directed at Joppa Hall.
The college was responsible for notifying students, faculty and staff of the incident and telling them what to do, Kahler said.
"HCC on lockdown for threatening phone call. Students can be picked up at Campus Hills [Shopping Center]," the Sheriff's Office tweeted through its Twitter account at approximately 9:35 p.m. The shopping center is east of the campus on Route 22.
Davis said 100 to 125 students were on the scene.
"We're going through meticulously, that's what's taking so long," he said at the time. "Our number one concern is not missing anyone."
"People were told to shelter in place, lock themselves in a classroom and be real quiet. We come in to the clear the building, meticulously going room to room, identifying ourselves," Davis said. "Once we identify ourselves, identify those in the classroom, we escort them out of the building."
"We search every room, every closet in every building," Davis said.
Shortly after 11:30 p.m., the search was "almost finished," he said.
Shortly before 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, the sheriff's office announced on its Facebook page, the "entire campus was completely evacuated."
Classes at the community college have not started for the spring semester and "very few classes were going on," Mary Eilerman, chief of public safety for HCC, said late Tuesday night. "There's just a sprinkling of non-credit classes."
She added that was "extremely helpful" in a situation like Tuesday's lockdown.