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UPDATE:
New details regarding a violent threat to the Olympic College Bremerton campus on March 4 were released Thursday in a Bremerton police report.
According to the report, Ashley Paul St. James, 45, of Poulsbo, told a customer service representative at a call center in Texas he was “moving into a shelter across the street from the school he attended and is going to attack it whenever he could.”
The report when on to say St. James said he would not pay his student loan because he would be killing quite a few people and possibly himself, and if not he may be in jail in a year.
The phone call eventually resulted in a brief campus evacuation that afternoon just before 4 p.m.
After Kitsap County Sheriffs Office deputies contacted the suspect in his home in Poulsbo, he was taken to Harrison Medical Center where he denied making threats to kill people, but did admit to getting upset about his student loans, said the police report.
Supplementary reports have yet to be released from the Kitsap County Sheriffs Office.
We will continue to updates this story as more information is released.
END OF UPDATE
Former Olympic College student Ashley Paul St. James was arraigned in Kitsap County District Court Friday for allegedley threatening to cause harm to others and himself.
According to Vice President of Student Services Rick MacLennan, St. James made the threats to a third party about his intentions but did not mention the college specifically. The third party, a collection agency in Texas, contacted local law enforcement who then alerted campus authorities.
At about 3:05 p.m. Thursday, campus security receive notification of the possible threat to the Bremerton campus. Security began the process of contacting administration immediately to decide what the appropriate response should be.
Approximately 45 minutes later, OC President David Mitchell made the call to evacuate the Bremerton campus.
“From the time I found out about it to the time I made the decision was about 10 - 15 minutes,” Mitchell said, adding he thought the response time was very quick.
Just minutes into the evacuation process on campus, Mitchell said law enforcement apprehended the suspect at his home in Poulsbo.
Communications Director Jennifer Hayes said about 15 minutes after she was notified of the college’s plan to evacuate she received another call saying St. James was in custody.
Hayes said the college had student safety in mind as it responded to the incident while the suspect was located and arrested.
“Based on what we knew at the time, the college was taking every course of action to protect the safety of OC students and employees,” Hayes said.
At his arraignment in Port Orchard, St. James was served with a no trespass order provided by MacLennan.
Judge Jeffrey Jahns set bail for the defandant at $15,000, with the condition that St. James was not to be on the campus
For updates on this situation, please check www.ocolympian.com
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