Hastings College of Law campus evacuated
following threat from blog post

By Tamara Barak and Brigid Gaffikin, Bay City News Service

April 18, 2007

San Francisco police and the FBI responded to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law this afternoon after a learning of a blog post claiming there would be a shooting on the campus today, San Francisco police Sgt. Neville Gittens said.

The Police Department received a call from the university about the Internet posting at 12:15 p.m., Gittens said.

Officers went out to the campus to investigate and to make a police report, he said.

Peter Keane, former dean of the Golden Gate University School of Law, is a visiting professor at Hastings. He was preparing to teach his 3:30 p.m. class when the school's assistant dean asked him to evacuate, he said.

"She said they had gotten disturbing information and the FBI recommended clearing the building," Keane said.

Keane and about a dozen of his students relocated to a nearby coffee shop, where a student was able to use his laptop computer to locate the threatening blog on the Web.

In "dark and disturbing" language, the blogger said something to the effect of "Hastings better watch out today and tomorrow," Keane said.

Keane said the blogger's identity didn't seem to be hidden, but he wasn't sure whether it was a student who had made the postings.

Keane said being evacuated seemed like a reasonable response, especially after Monday's mass shooting at Virginia Tech.

"I think it's a reflection of a concern that's necessary after what happened in Virginia," he said.

The UC Hastings College of the Law is located at 200 McAllister St. in San Francisco.

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