Volume 67, Issue 2

Bomb Scare at Zysman Hall Forces
Campus Evacuation

by Avi Robinson

An unidentified green suitcase left outside Zysman Hall early Friday morning, August 30th, set off a bomb scare that displaced hundreds of students while the NYPD Emergency Services Unit (ESU) and SWAT team ascertained the bag’s contents.  Immediately after the bag was deemed safe, Richard Sieger, a beggar who has frequented the Wilf Campus over the years, claimed the suitcase, which he had forgotten upon leaving campus earlier that night. The episode, the most expansive evacuation at Yeshiva in recent history, provided students and the Office of Safety and Security with their first experience of safety protocol during a real emergency.

 Sequence of Events

 At approximately 12:45 AM on Friday morning, the Burns security officer outside Zysman Hall noticed the suitcase resting unattended next to the building. When none of the students still studying in the Beis Medrash claimed the bag, security ordered all the students to exit through the 186th Street side doors.  Steering students around Amsterdam Avenue, security cleared Muss Hall soon afterwards through the 187^th street side doors and the library through the 185th Street emergency exit. While students initially milled around the streets, by 1:10 AM security had guided the students from the Beis Medrash to Morgenstern Hall and the others to Rubin and Belfer Halls.

At least twelve NYPD police cars, containing approximately 25 detail officers, five supervisors, and members of the Fire Department, ESU, and SWAT team, converged on the campus and barricaded it off from all sides. The police cordon closed off pedestrian traffic on Amsterdam Avenue from 185th street to 187th street and vehicular traffic as far south as 182nd street. Burns Security and NYPD worked together to keep students off the streets for the duration of the emergency. By 1:50 AM, the SWAT team’s portable x-ray machines had scanned the bag and deemed its contents harmless. Security then quickly reopened the campus to the public.

 Student response

 Student reactions during the crisis ranged from cooperation and ignorance to amusement and outrage. The students in the Main Beis Medrash rose quickly and calmly and resumed their learning in the Morgenstern Basement Beis Medrash. “None of us thought it was a bomb anyway, but we knew we had to follow the instructions,” said Yeshiva College junior Yair Hindin. “The night before a fire alarm had sounded at approximately the same time, and nobody even budged. We knew this was something similar.”  Likewise, pickup basketball games in the Max Stern Athletic Center continued unabated, their participants blithely ignoring the tense atmosphere outside.

In the Rubin Lobby, however, the haven for almost all of the displaced students, the mood was far less forgiving. “It’s ridiculous,” complained one student. “Some guy left his underwear outside, and he’s going to lose it. He probably lost his tefillin too . . . in Israel things like this take only ten minutes, not an hour and a half.” An enraged Menachem Wecker, a YC sophomore, agreed. “Do you really believe that it’s safer inside here than right outside the doors?” challenged Wecker. “Convenience comes before safety. It’s 1:25 in the morning, and I want to get back to Muss and go to sleep. How do they expect me to wake up for minyan in the morning?” Benzion Green likewise vented: “What are the chances of a bomb – one in a million? It’s not a risk, it’s a joke.”

Still, the majority of students expressed appreciation for security’s efforts and complimented the operation’s efficiency. “They’re doing a good job,” commented YC senior Aryeh Hoenig, who also was waiting in Rubin after being displaced from his dorm room. “Even if it takes two hours, it’s necessary.” 

Yeshiva College Student Association President Uzi Beer concurred. “It was annoying, but it was done very professionally,” he recollected. “Security was as accommodating as possible, allowing students to go back and forth between Rubin and Morg through the back ways. It was also neat to see all those cops come so quickly with all their equipment.”

Security Response

 While regretting the timing of the incident, Yeshiva’s Office of Safety and Security expressed satisfaction at the evacuation’s effective execution.  Burns Security Nighttime Chief Bob Dunn, who oversaw the handling of the crisis, reported on scene that he was “very pleased.” While he had never responded to a bomb scare at Yeshiva before, he had overseen similar incidents during his tenure as an NYPD officer.

University Chief of Security Don Sommers praised the incident as an indication of the high degree of preparedness of Burns’ officers. When asked whether he felt security could execute such a large-scale evacuation even during the middle of the day, he responded in the affirmative. “We are trained for incidents like this and even more severe ones. We practice emergency procedures during fire drills.” Summers urged students to be vigilant when observing their surroundings and to point out similarly suspicious bags to security officers. 

Many participants in the incident wonder whether security overreacted. Foremost among them is Mr. Sieger, the bag’s former owner. Sieger described the event as an unfortunate case of mere forgetfulness. Having picked up the empty suitcase out of the trash for the sake of his upcoming Rosh Hashanna traveling, when he left campus around 11:30 that night he mistakenly left the suitcase next to the bench where he had been sitting. “I completely forgot about it,” he recalled. “When I came back and saw all those lights, I thought, ‘Oh no.’ But they knew it was mine, because when I came, the guard asked me, ‘Hey Rich, is that your bag?’ They know me.  They know that I would never leave a bomb. I made a stupid mistake, completely forgot about it, and they went nuts.”

Although security warned him not to appear on campus again – a technically empty threat since security has no jurisdiction over the sidewalks – Sieger returned to collect charity the following Saturday night. Mr. Dunn emphasized that Sieger could not be charged with any crime, since he did not act with intention to provoke a bomb scare.

For many students, the event concretized the post-September 11 reality that safety is no longer a given and that security must be more vigilant nowadays than ever before. As freshman Danny Solomon observed: “I didn’t go to Israel because I thought it wasn’t safe. But now I don’t feel safe at all.”

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