PLEASANT HILL — A staff member or two ran in the rain to their cars in a mostly empty parking lot on the Diablo Valley College campus Thursday morning. A campus patrol car drove past a waiting bus.

The deserted feel of the campus didn’t erase the uneasiness after all classes were canceled and students told to stay home after police and administrators were alerted to a gun threat written in graffiti.

“We are investigating a potentially serious threat that has been made … and are closing the location as a precaution,” a statement early Thursday on the DVC web site said. A statement at 8:25 a.m. posted to the same site detailed that there was graffiti and threatened the use of a gun.

Campus police did not disclose where the threat had been found on the campus.

The college also contacted all students and their parents.

“The threat was aimed toward the school,” DVC police Lt. Ryan Huddleston said. “We have police on campus like they normally would be, patrolling the area and keeping an eye out.”

The threat came days after DVC President Susan Lamb sent an email to the campus community that recent reported threats that had come to the college’s attention did not carry credibility and that “there was no viable threat or ongoing danger to students or anyone on the campus.”

Hailey Brophy, 18, a student at the school even before receiving her high school diploma at 14, said those earlier threats were directed at her and others during history club meetings on the campus last semester. Brophy remains the president of the club, but is considering stepping down because of the repeated harassment she said she’s endured.

“I’m baffled by the fact that a graffiti incident is being taken more seriously than months of ongoing threats, harassment and hate speech,” she said via text Thursday afternoon. “It is good to see the school taking student safety seriously after all this fuss.”

According to Brophy, a male student in his 20s began attending history club meetings in October and soon began speaking up, saying among other things that “immigrants were rapists and Jews were evil. … He made comments to me about women needing to know their place.”

Lamb said Thursday that the current threat is “separate and distinct from the earlier situation.”

In the email regarding that earlier situation, Lamb also noted “there was information shared that was determined not to be credible. The misinformation resulted in heightened alarm, anxiety and fear, especially in light of the national stress around college safety at this time.”

That comment “infuriated” Brophy’s mother, Jessica Platt, who also said she believes it was aimed at a Facebook post she wrote about her own frustrations with the campus’ response to her daughter’s concerns. That post, “intended just to vent to my friends,” Platt said, instead went viral. It has been shared 1,069 times and “liked” more than 1,100.

“We felt like there was a lot of misinformation going on around campus, and it was coming from a lot of places, not just that one,” Lamb said Wednesday. “I will tell you that when something like this comes to our attention, we do take it seriously every single time.”

The college’s San Ramon campus remained open Thursday, and classes at Los Medanos College and Contra Costa College were not affected.

Late Thursday afternoon, the community college district issued an update, stating that DVC will return to its original schedule on Friday.

“While the investigation will continue, we have found no additional evidence to corroborate the validity of a greater than normal risk to our community,” wrote Timothy Leong, public information officer for CCCCD, in a news release.

Additional police officers are going to be stationed on campus to ease the community’s anxiety and counseling services are being made available to staff and students on Friday and on a limited basis during spring break, according to a district press release.

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