A Seattle University nursing student who police say left a series of handwritten notes threatening to bomb campus buildings, as well as threatening to shoot doctors at Swedish Medical Center, was ordered held Tuesday in lieu of $50,000 bail.
A Seattle University nursing student accused of leaving a series of handwritten notes threatening to bomb campus buildings, as well as threatening to shoot doctors at Swedish Medical Center, was ordered held Tuesday in lieu of $50,000 bail.
According to an affidavit of probable cause released after Mai Thi Bach Nguyen’s King County Jail bail hearing Tuesday, four notes were found in restrooms at Seattle University on Friday, threatening the placement of bombs in two campus buildings. Both buildings were evacuated and searched for bombs, but none were found.
On Saturday morning, security staff at Swedish Medical Center/Cherry Hill contacted Seattle police to report that a note threatening to shoot “doctors, nurses, future nursing students” had been found, the affidavit said. The note said the shootings would occur on April 18 at James Tower, on the hospital campus.
Similar handwritten notes were found on the floors of restrooms across the hospital campus, the affidavit said.
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Police obtained surveillance videos and had faculty at Seattle University review them, a police report said. Nguyen, a 26-year-old nursing student, was identified as a potential suspect.
On Monday morning, police were alerted to another note at Seattle University threatening that some sort of shooting or bombing would occur between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
“This time is not just a threat,” the note writer said, according to the affidavit.
Campus security, in the meantime, had been monitoring Nguyen’s activities and told police that she had been seen “going and coming from the area where the notes were posted,” the affidavit said.
Campus security took Nguyen into custody on Monday and turned her over to police.
Nguyen was interviewed by two homicide detectives and said she wrote the notes but didn’t intend to carry out the threats, the affidavit said.
Police searched Nguyen’s backpack and found paper resembling the paper used to write some of the notes, the affidavit said.
Nguyen, of Skyway, is being held at the King County Jail for investigation of threats to bomb and investigation of felony harassment.