Victoria Goldberg, Executive Editor (Online)
Featured image by Michael Zusev, Photo Editor
A flurry of police cars descended onto Keele campus after an unattended suspicious package caused an evacuation of Vari Hall.
At approximately 1:41 p.m., the York U Safety App and emergency broadcast televisions alerted students to abandon Vari Hall immediately by using the nearest exit.
The suspicious package, a suitcase, found in the female bathroom of the second floor of Vari Hall, was not deemed safe and disposed.
The chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive team responded to the threat at approximately 2:04 p.m., according to CP24, whose Chopper 24 circled above Vari Hall.
According to Janice Walls, York Media, York Security Services received a call regarding an unattended suitcase at 12:38 p.m. Toronto Police Service was notified of a suitcase in a strange place at 1:03 p.m.
Under the advisement of TPS, York called for an evacuation.
Police officers left the scene at 5:40 p.m. while Vari Hall reopened at 5:55 p.m. Classes held at Vari Hall were cancelled between 2:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and TTC and GO buses were rerouted after the Harry W. Arthur Commons were closed.
Yun Lin, a third-year human rights and equity studies student, says there were approximately 12 cars surrounding Vari Hall.
“Everyone’s really confused, people are waiting around. I think a lot of them just want to see what’s going on,” says Lin, who was part of the crowd while the evacuation was underway.
“Whenever we get something like this, we always treat it as the most extreme and work our way back down,” says Toronto police Constable Victor Kwong.
“Whatever it turned out to be was not deemed suspicious, meaning it was not a threat. Had they detonated it or taken it out of the building into a bomb truck, but none of that happened.”
Evacuations are a rare occurrence at York. A glance at the Weekly Security Incident Logs published by York security shows few instances of suspicious packages. Since January 2014, only four incidents of suspicious packages were received by YSS, with the latest being a suspicious item mailed to the Kinsmen Building from a non-community member.
With files from Ryan Moore, Alex Kvaskov, and Zainab Dada
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