Pipe Bomb Shakes Black College
By DAVID ROYSE
09:27 PM ET 09/22/99
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A pipe bomb exploded Wednesday in a building at Florida
A&M University, the second blast at the historically black school in less than a
month. No injuries were reported and damage was minor in blasts that were accompanied by
the warning it was ``just the beginning, brother.'' At around the time of Wednesday's
explosion, a caller to a Tallahassee television station used racial slurs and said the
students at Florida A&M didn't need a university. WTXL-TV received a second call laced
with profanity and racist remarks after the bomb went off.
``FAMU has seen the beginning of this ... they got no business having a college
where there ain't nobody ... smart enough to get a degree .... This is just the beginning,
brother,'' the station quoted the caller as saying.
In the Aug. 31 blast, a caller told the same station he wanted to ``get rid of
some of them niggers.'' No one was hurt and there was little damage from that blast.
Authorities also received a call Wednesday warning of a bomb in another campus
building, but a search turned up nothing. ``There are obvious, commonsense connections you
could make,'' said Byron Price, FBI supervisor in Tallahassee. But he added that
authorities have no concrete evidence linking the two explosions. Authorities have offered
a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the first bombing.
The bomb that went off Wednesday exploded in a first-floor restroom of Perry Paige Hall,
which has four floors of laboratories, offices, classrooms and the Navy ROTC office. The
building and several others were evacuated.
Classes were called off for the day and scheduled to resume Thursday.
School spokesman Eddie Jackson said the school, which has 12,000 students and
119 buildings on campus, stepped up security after the first bomb and will tighten it even
more now.
Some students said they no longer feel safe on campus. ``It's scary,'' Olevia
Robinson said. ``The next time someone might definitely get hurt.''
Wednesday evening, about 200 students gathered on the university library's steps
to pray and talk about making the campus safe. Students suggested placing cameras around
the university and notifying all students if a threat has been made on campus. Student
government vice president Derric Heck said he hoped the bomber would not succeed in
shutting down the campus. ``Let them know that our education cannot be stopped,'' Heck
said.
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