Arrest Made in E-Mailed Threat
to Shoot Up Arizona Library
Raymond Rodden III, 23, was arrested December 9 for e-mailing from a University of Arizona Library workstation several threats to engage in a shooting spree there. A part-time business student at Pima Community College, Rodden admitted writing the October 30 e-mail, which claimed the anonymous sender would shoot at least six students “or anyone else who gets in my way at the University of Arizona Library today @5:30 P.M.”
Received two days after disgruntled nursing-school student Robert S. Flores allegedly shot to death three nursing professors on campus, the e-mail prompted authorities to close the library within an hour, evacuating more than 200 people.
“It started off as a prank,” Rodden said in the December 10 Tucson Arizona Daily Star, explaining that he agreed to be interviewed because “I just want to let everyone know I’m sorry. I’m not a violent person.” Rodden, who is on probation for impersonating a federal agent in 1999, added that he was inspired by an online Daily Star article about Flores. But UA Police Chief Anthony Daykin asserted that Rodden’s message “was intended to terrorize people.”
Rodden’s threat is the second made from a campus workstation this year. On March 25, former UA business-school student Sarood Tanveer, 21, sent UA President Peter Likins a death threat from the science library. Tanveer is serving three years’ probation.
Posted December 16, 2002.
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