PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – A student detained at Lewis & Clark College Wednesday was wearing an ammunition belt as what a Portland police officer called “a fashion accessory.”
Portland Police spokeswoman Catherine Kent said the belt was made of spent cartridges. Campus officers confiscated it. He did not have a weapon and got what the campus president called “a stern talking-to.”
By e-mail and phone calls to campus buildings, officials told students, staff and faculty to stay put, a warning that was lifted after 11 minutes.
“We were very close to shutting down the campus and would have done so, but we learned the student had been apprehended,” said President Thomas Hochstettler.
The incident preceded a noon campus vigil for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, which “have brought home to us with grim ferocity the harsh truth that senseless violence can strike anywhere and at any time, even on a college campus,” Hochstettler said in a message to the campus of 3,600 students.
He did not say whether the belt would be returned. “Whether he will wear it again on campus, I’m pretty sure he will not,” Hochstettler told The Associated Press.
He said the student understands that “it was an ill-advised thing to be doing at this juncture.”
In Eugene police arrested a 15-year-old Willamette High School sophomore Wednesday after a homemade bomb detonated in a hallway trash can. Police said damage was limited to the container.
The student faces initial charges of manufacturing a destructive device, possession of a destructive device in a public building, recklessly endangering and disorderly conduct.
Police, the Eugene Metro Explosives Disposal Unit and a Federal Protective Services officer responded. A bomb-sniffing dog checked for other explosives.
Officers and school officials ordered a lockdown that kept students in their classrooms during the search.