Voicemail threat of gun violence from student leads to ‘shelter in place’ alert and cancelled classes

by KATE SELTZER & RILEY RANDALL

News Editor and Staff Writer

A student issued a threat via voicemail to a faculty member of the English, Linguistics and Communication Department on Monday, Nov. 18.

“The voicemail was forwarded to our campus police around noon. I don’t know what time the voicemail came in, but the recipient immediately forwarded it to the police once the recipient heard the voicemail,” said Anna Billingsley, associate vice president of University Relations.

UMW Police Chief Michael Hall convened the threat assessment team around 1 p.m.

“We all convened and listened to the voicemail, discussed it and decided that in taking an abundance of caution, we would immediately get out a message about campus classes and events being cancelled until further notice,” Billingsley said.

According to Hall, the voicemail was not specific or targeted.

“The content of the voicemail was just a warning of a person coming to campus to shoot. It was not directed at a particular person,” Hall said.

After speaking with the caller, who was identified as senior Andria Theodorou, authorities determined that the threat was not credible.

“[The information] added up that the intent was not to harm anyone at the university, it was more to mask another incident that had taken place,” Hall said. “We were actually able to make contact with the caller. That bought us some time to start working through, ‘alright let’s get a message to our community, let’s put our community in a shelter in place mode.’ Until we could physically see the person, then we didn’t want to expose the campus to a potential threat without them knowing it.”

Theodorou was arrested shortly after 3 p.m. on Monday and was booked at Rappahannock Regional Jail at 7:34 p.m. that same night. Her bond was posted at $10,000, and she was released on Tuesday, Nov. 19.

Hall indicated that there may have been extenuating circumstances that contributed to the call being made.

“We’re going to move forward to ensure that the individual caller has the appropriate resources they need now,” he said.

“Why did that person go to that level, and did they really understand the magnitude of what they were doing?” he added. “I don’t want to dismiss that we don’t take that seriously, but at the same time, knowing what I do know, there’s some other means or services that that person needs.”

Many of the rumors emerging on Monday were centered around Combs Hall, which houses the ELC department.

“That was really a big part of why we went ahead as quickly as possible and got a notice out to the whole campus,” Billingsley said. “We knew how quickly word would spread among folks on campus, and we’d rather have facts out and information from authorities than just rumors.”

ELC Department Chair Gary Richards said, “Things were, of course, nerve-racking on Monday, but I was amazed at – and am so appreciative of – the calm support shown by the staff in our department office. Office manager Susie Kuliasha and student aide James Vaughn were models of professionalism.”

Some staff members were shocked that the threat occurred so close to home. Professor Karen Burrell, who teaches in the Spanish department in Combs Hall, said that she was “surprised by the possibility that someone at UMW would make such a threat.”  

While she was not on campus during the threat, the idea of someone walking with a firearm on campus was enough to shake her confidence in campus safety.

“Let’s just say I feel relatively safe,” said Burrell.

Hall said that although the threat was not credible, it served as a test for how the University would handle a similar situation in the future.

“Out of a very negative situation, it also gave the university [the opportunity] to evaluate our responses. What can we do better? How can we improve?” he said. “What you like to see is that which takes place in a controlled environment is replicated in an emergency… It magnifies the areas we did very well in. That’s the positive of a negative situation.”