UPDATE: November 3, 2015 (KMJ) – 18 year old football player Christian Pryor bailed out of jail this morning.
UPDATE: November 3, 2015 (KMJ) – Fresno State Police arrested 18 year old football player Christian Pryor, on a charge of terrorist threat, in conjunction with a social media posting. Chief David Huerta said University police arrested Pryor in the Athletic Department offices on campus. He was booked at Fresno County Jail. Pryor is a freshman from Los Angeles. Huerta said Pryor was apprehended within two hours after police learned of a Yik Yak posting by someone threatening use of a weapon.
Fresno State administrators worked together to follow the situation closely with the Fresno State Police Department, with a top priority to make sure that the campus community was safe. Regular updates were sent via social media, through Bulldog Alert, the campus emergency text system, and through campus email to faculty, staff and students. As soon as the suspect was in custody and police were certain he acted alone, the campus was notified that classes would continue. Huerta thanked individuals who provided information which enabled the campus and Fresno State law enforcement to act quickly.
Provost Lynnette Zelezny commented about not locking down the campus: saying that she and the police had three choices: Stop the threat, prevent it or make the students safe. They felt the risk to students was greater if they evacuated due to the weather, and they also felt they were close to finding the student – so they chose to increase efforts and police on campus.
November 2, 2015 (KMJ) – Fresno State police have identified and taken a person of interest into custody after a threat was made on social media, around 12:30 Monday afternoon.
Around 1:30, KMJ News received a tip from a caller about a threat of a possible shooting at Fresno State at 3:00, Monday afternoon – and KMJ called police.
Fresno Police Lt. Joe Gomez told KMJ he was also contacted by other sources about a post they saw on the social media site Yik Yak that a person was going to shoot students at 3:00pm Monday afternoon.
Lt. Gomez says they placed more police on campus on today as a precaution.
At around 2:00 today, Fresno police reported that a person was taken in for questioning from the apartments across from Bulldog Stadium.
Classes were still in session – though some professors did cancel their classes and the Fresno State band tweeted that it would not have practice, today:” “Red Wave, in light of threats on campus the BMB is not rehearsing today and choosing safety as a priority.”
Fresno State Traffic Operations was managing traffic along Barstow Ave as campus cleared out due to social media threat.
