Alex Mosher
Staff Writer
“The ISU emergency alert system was never shut down or crashed during the incident,” said Summers. “It was however, a life-safety matter.”
The text messages had no correlation with the white powder incident going on during the same time. On December 3 at 1:30 p.m., a Pond Student Union Building mail center staff member discovered an envelope that contained a mysterious white powder. Emergency personnel were immediately contacted and the mail center and surrounding areas were shut down for further investigation.
In order to ensure public safety, all employees that came in contact with the powder were isolated until officials knew the true contents of the envelope.
It wasn’t until 6:15 p.m. that same day that the Pocatello Fire Department released that the contents of the envelope were not harmful.
“Law enforcement released that the powder was crushed prescription opioids that were in an envelope sent to the University,” said Stuart Summers, ISU Spokesman. “Idaho State does not send or receive prescription opioids through the mail.”
Confusion arose after the Pocatello Police Department and the University released two different statements that explained where the crushed up Oxycontin came from. According to PPD, the Oxycontin was mailed to the ISU College of Health Professions for research. Whereas ISU states that the envelope was not connected to the university in anyway.
“This powder was discovered in an envelope that had been repurposed and utilized by, and sent from, an outside individual,” said Rex Force, vice president for Health Sciences, in a video posted to the department’s Facebook page. “None of these products originated in the University. Standard research protocol, as well as federal and state guidelines and law, would preclude us from shipping medications in this manner.”
According to Captain James McCoy of the Pocatello Police Department, the substance was in fact related to research and was sent to the University by one of the patients in the nursing department graduate study program, reusing an envelope from the ISU nursing department.
The patient responsible for obtaining the envelope attempted to cross out the return address back to ISU, however, the address was still readable. This lead to the return of the envelope to ISU after it was assumed to be deemed undeliverable when the patient tried to mail the envelope out of state, according to Captain McCoy.
The patient was identified by a patient I.D. number and due to their medical status and lack of malicious intent, Captain McCoy said that no further action would be pursued.
While all of this was happening, Idaho State’s emergency alert system had received over 1,100 alert text messages containing the entire script from The Bee Movie that allegedly shut down the campus alert system. This allegation, however, is false.
A high school student that was dual enrolled in ISU classes sent the text messages for reasons that are unknown, resulting in ISU’s dispatchers to go through each text message individually to determine whether or not there were any legitimate inquiries or concerns that needed to be addressed.
