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Bomb threat triggers evacuation at Howard University's Cook Hall

Police and university officials gave the "all clear" just after 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — Howard University's Cook Hall was evacuated around 11 p.m. Tuesday night because of a bomb threat.

According to the university's Department of Public Safety, the Metropolitan Police Department relayed a report of a bomb threat around 10:55 p.m. The threat was anonymously made, specifically against Cook Hall on the university's main campus. 

Police and university officials conducted a full search of the facility using human, animal and mechanical explosive finding resources, the Department of Public Safety said in a tweet

Students were evacuated to assigned safe areas until the all-clear order was given. It's unclear how many students were evacuated.

MPD and university officials issued the all-clear for Cook Hall around 1 a.m. No devices were found.

Residence halls just opened for continuing students at Howard.

Howard University along with other Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) around the country were targets for numerous bomb threats around the country earlier this year.

The FBI launched an investigation after at least 17 HBCUs were targeted by bomb threats in February.

RELATED: Howard University president says HBCU bomb threats 'motivated by hate'

The bomb threats against Black institutions are deeply rooted in U.S. history. In Alabama, people used to call Birmingham “Bombingham” because of how many bombs and bomb threats occurred, said DeJuana Thompson, president and CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.  Among the many victims: the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a civil rights leader whose home was damaged on Christmas Day in 1956 by 16 sticks of dynamite placed beneath his bedroom window. When a KKK member suggested he leave town, Shuttlesworth responded that “I wasn’t saved to run,” U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. told the House of Representatives after Shuttlesworth died in 2011.

RELATED: Leaders at Black colleges alert, undeterred by bomb threats

Previous coverage of February bomb threats:

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