Police have apprehended the person who emailed a bomb threat, prompting a temporary evacuation of Harvard University on Monday.
The suspect’s motive? He wanted to get out of taking a final exam.
His name is Eldo Kim, and he was a 20-year-old sophomore majoring in psychology at Harvard. A promising student, Kim won an award from the Institute for Peace for his essay on “Cultural Genocide: A Look into the Unknown,” according to The College Fix.
Kim’s friends described him as a friendly, quiet person. All were shocked by his actions, according to The Harvard Crimson.
One friend, Edward Cho, said it was, “pretty surprising to hear that [Kim] went to such great lengths to avoid a final that he probably would have done well on anyway.”
Another friend, who was also surprised, did note that Cho, “did have a stressful semester.”
Kim worked hard to make the bomb threat anonymous using a service that creates temporary email addresses, but authorities are certain that he is the perpetrator. He now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The bomb threat caused Harvard to temporarily evacuate the campus and suspend all of its exams on Monday. Administrators have given students and teachers who missed their exams the option of skipping them entirely, or completing supplemental work.