Lafayette: Alaskan charged with making May bomb threats

Federal authorities have charged a man in Anchorage, Alaska, with threatening to attack Lafayette College's Easton campus in May, college President Alison Byerly said Saturday.

The U.S. attorney's office and the FBI plan to discuss the investigation at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Lafayette, Byerly said. She did not name the man.

The Anchorage Daily News reported a federal judge issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for a 20-year-old who admitted making bomb threats. According to an affidavit, the newspaper reported, the man had an argument on Discord, a chat application used by gamers. The man told the FBI he acted on his antagonist's challenge to send the threats, according to the newspaper.

On May 5, someone wrote on a Twitter account that he had “set up several pipe bombs, pressure cookers and nail bombs around the campus and plan to inflict the utmost damage possible.” He also posted photos of guns on a bed and said he had been ridiculed for “taking up my faith in Islam.”

Overnight, law enforcement officers conducted a room-byroom search before determining they had not found “any malicious or hazardous materials.”

During and after the incident, some students and parents expressed frustration over what they considered a lack of communication from Lafayette officials. Byerly said Saturday that the college has taken steps to ensure the campus community is better informed about safety procedures and communication protocols.