University of Pittsburgh Police evacuated Posvar Hall on Tuesday afternoon after officers said a threat had been made against a specific department inside the building, emptying one of campus's largest academic buildings and shutting down the surrounding streets. Officers set up outside the building at South Bouquet Street and Roberto Clemente Drive, and drivers were told to avoid the area entirely as the response unfolded.
Pitt Police said Posvar Hall was being evacuated because threats were made against a department inside it, according to a campus alert cited by WPXI. As reported by CBS News, the threat was directed specifically at a department inside the building, prompting its immediate evacuation and closure. Police have not disclosed the exact details of the incident, per the WPXI report.
The scale of the disruption is hard to overstate. Posvar Hall, built between 1975 and 1978 as Forbes Quadrangle, is the largest academic classroom building on Pitt's campus at 744,695 square feet, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. The building serves as the central hub for several major academic units, including the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, the School of Education, social science departments within the Dietrich School, and the Global Hub student center, per Pittwire.
Drivers and Students Told to Steer Clear
Students and nearby residents were asked to avoid the area until further notice, the station's report notes, while drivers were separately urged to follow detours around the closure. People who left personal belongings inside Posvar Hall during the evacuation could re-enter after it reopened at 5:55 p.m. to collect them. Channel 11 had a crew heading to the scene as the situation developed, with streaming coverage set for 4 p.m. and a broadcast at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Tuesday's threat lands in the middle of an already tense month on Pitt's campus. It followed two separate reports of antisemitic graffiti found along major campus corridors between October 12 and October 15, according to earlier Hoodline reporting on heightened police activity in Oakland.
A Building With a Long History of Threats
Posvar Hall is no stranger to this kind of disruption. In spring 2012, Pitt was hit with a campaign of more than 100 bomb threats that repeatedly forced evacuations of Posvar Hall, dormitories, and other academic facilities across campus, Wikipedia's account of the episode states. That wave of threats eventually led to a federal grand jury indicting Irish national Adam Stuart Busby in August 2012 on 35 federal counts, including wire fraud and false bomb threats sent through anonymous email remailers to Pitt officials and local media, as reported by The Pitt News.
Under Pennsylvania law, the stakes for whoever is responsible for Tuesday's threat are serious. Communicating a threat that results in the evacuation of a building or the interruption of its normal operations is graded as a third-degree felony under 18 Pa.C.S. § 2706, carrying a maximum of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine, according to DeLuco Law.
Building Sits on Historic Forbes Field Site
Beyond its current role, Posvar Hall occupies a storied piece of Pittsburgh ground. The building stands on the former site of Forbes Field, where the Pittsburgh Pirates played from 1909 to 1970, and it preserves the stadium's original home plate under protective glass on its first floor, according to the University of Pittsburgh.
The university has faced scrutiny in the past over how quickly it alerts students during emergencies. Pitt relies on an Emergency Notification System to send real-time text, email, and voice alerts during campus incidents, a protocol that has previously drawn criticism from students over communication timing during past threat events, per the University Times. Police identified and took the person responsible for Tuesday's threat into custody on October 20, and Eden Schwartz was charged on October 21. Posvar Hall reopened at 5:55 p.m. on October 20, allowing people to retrieve belongings left inside, and normal activities resumed after officers cleared the building.
