BELLEVILLE • Authorities found nothing threatening on the Southwestern Illinois College campus today after a morning bomb threat prompted an immediate campuswide evacuation, a college spokesman said.

Police and search dogs swept the campus and found nothing after someone called St. Clair County dispatchers just before 8 a.m. to report a bomb threat on the SWIC campus.

"The campus is safe," said Mike Fleming, a college spokesman.

Police said the phone number of the anonymous male caller wasn't traceable, but they were trying to track a ping from the caller's cell phone to the 900 block of Wabash Avenue, just south of Mascoutah Avenue.

Security at the college said the entire Belleville campus was evacuated and that all campus operations would be closed today.

Several thousand people who were on campus were told to leave, Fleming said.

Colleen Mulholland, 19, of Freeburg, was in her English class when an announcement was made. Mulholland said, "Everyone just flew out of the building."

Outside, she said there were police officers and security guards all around the building. Hundreds of student were in their cars trying to get off campus.

Fleming said search dogs from the Scott Air Force military base were brought onto campus to help search. The Illinois State Police, St. Clair County sheriff's office, Belleville police and the college public safety officers were called in.

Matt LaMonica, 19, of Millstadt, is a physical therapy student. He said he didn't know about the bomb threat until he was driving to campus and saw police blocking the entrances.

Since nothing had been found, he was glad to have the day off, but suspects he won't be far from his studies. "I didn't have all of my homework done," he said.

The campus serves 12,000 students, Fleming said. The college made its announcement using a loudspeaker, but also sent email and text messages, Fleming said.

Fleming said classes will resume Saturday.

Meanwhile, the high school in Freeburg was locked down Friday. An anonymous call came in to a secretary at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday, saying there would be a shooting at the high school at 9 a.m. Friday.

The building and lockers were searched Thursday. Classes went ahead as scheduled Friday, but students were searched as they entered the building. The lockdown means that students weren't free to leave the building between classes, and all visitors are to be escorted by administration officials and police, said Andrew Lehman, school superintendent.

Lehman said authorities haven't found out who made the call, and he doesn't know if it's connected to what is happening on the college campus.

There were no abmormal incidents at the school Friday, and Freeburg students were dismissed at the regular time, said Freeburg Police Chief Mel Woodruff.

A heightened police presence will guard the high school Monday but officers will not search students entering the school as they did on Friday, Woodruff said.

Security "won't be as heightened as today, but it will be above average of what they're used to," Woodruff said.

Woodruff said police are working with phone companies to trace the source of the call to the school. He said police have found no evidence of a link between the phone threats so far.

St. Clair County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Hundelt said investigators aren't discounting a possible link between the two threats. Hundelt said police are still looking into the ping that traced to the 900 block of Wabash Avenue.

"We will look to see if there's a connection," he said.

 

Joel Currier of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.