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During Exam, Man Threatens to Blow Up Science Center

Threat ends in evacuation, arrest (Update: 2:00 p.m.)

A man walked into a Science Center exam room and threatened to set off a bomb this morning, before students fled and he was taken into custody by police. No one was harmed in the incident.

The man, who identified himself to police as Kenneth Leong, interrupted the final exam of Literature and Arts B-21, "Images of Alexander the Great," in Science Center B.

The exam was just beginning with several slide identifications at 9:30 a.m. when the man--who the course professor described as tall and thin, with facial hair, a dark complexion and dark clothes--entered the room through the doors in the room's back at around 9:30 a.m. The professor, David G. Mitten, Loeb professor of classical art and archaeology, said the man looked "extremely agitated."

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The man threw a brick at the blackboard and, after whipping off a satchel he had slung around his neck, informed the room that he had a bomb and "would kill everyone."

According to witnesses, Mitten demanded "Who are you? There's an exam going on." The man replied that his name was "Romanticist" and that if anyone tried to leave the room he would detonate his bomb. He said he was "declaring war on the United States of America."

Mitten said his first thought was that the man was a student late for an exam, but then "I realized he was dead serious and this was real trouble."

The man asked the students to put their heads down, but one student jumped up and ran out, starting a "stampede" for the door, according to Brandan A. Kramer '01.

Mitten, Teaching Fellow Marc A. Lindemann, and one student--Kris A. Garin--remained in the room with the man.

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