KBTX - Texas A&M News - Headlines

A&M, Texas State Bomb Threats Cost Taxpayers Thousands of Dollars

Updated: Mon 6:57 PM, Oct 29, 2012

A Bryan woman is expected to to be extradited to Hays County this week after she was arrested for e-mailing in a bomb threat at Texas State University.

Brittany Henderson is also being questioned about a bomb threat e-mailed to Texas A&M that prompted the evacuation of the entire campus a week and a half ago.

Monday, Dereon Kelly was arrested and charged in the A&M threat. Sources tell News 3 Kelly, 22, was either in a relationship or had a prior relationship with Henderson, who remains a person of interest.

Thousands of dollars in taxpayers' money were lost within a few hours as law enforcement responded to separate fake bomb threats here at Texas A&M as well as Texas State University in San Marcos.

News 3 investigated the impact from the hoaxes and the latest on how Texas State University Police connected the Bryan woman to their bomb threat.

It was a costly disruption of time and money here in Aggieland and a few hours away in San Marcos after separate bomb threats a day apart.

Henderson, 19, was arrested last Tuesday accused of sending an e-mail threatening to blow up the Admissions Building at Texas State University.

That caused the evacuation of three buildings October 18th.

"We were able to track that down to an e-mail account that actually belonged to her," said Daniel Benitez, the Captain of Operations for Texas State University Police.

Benitez says their response, including calling in the Austin Bomb Squad, could run in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Henderson was enrolled at Texas State in the Fall of 2011 but withdrew in September of this year for an undisclosed reason.

"We're gonna seek every avenue that we can to try to get anything back that we can, just simply because of the disruption. It's not fair for our students, faculty and staff," Benitez said.

In College Station police tell us they spent $6,000 on police officers handling the bomb threat that forced the entire evacuation of Texas A&M for the first time.

The Brazos County Sheriff's Office spent $1,489.72 on manpower while we still don't know how much money A&M is out.

While the costs for the bomb threat response here at Texas A&M are still being added up, we still don't know if the person responsible will have to pay restitution.

"The district attorney's office would be the one to decide whether or not that restitution would be presented to the judge for consideration," said Officer Rhonda Seaton, of the College Station Police Department.

Potential jail time to costly fines if convictions are made in court.

Henderson remains in the Brazos County Jail on $300,000 bond.

A motive in her case has not been released.


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