Former employee arrested in connection to Northeastern University bomb scare

(Image credit: MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images / Contributor/ Getty Images)

published 5 October 2022

Officials have arrested a former Northeastern University employee in connection with a bomb scare at a virtual reality lab on campus last month, NPR reports. Authorities say the employee filed a false claim when reporting the alleged incident.

On Sept. 13, Boston Police and FBI bomb squads responded to calls that a suspicious package had exploded in one of the labs on Northeastern campus. Jason Duhaime, then-director of the university's Immersive Media Lab, had made the 911 call, NPR reports.

Duhaime told authorities he had opened a plastic case that had been mailed to the lab and was injured by flying debris when the case then exploded. He also claimed to have found a letter criticizing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg and condemning virtual reality developers. But investigators have no said there were no signs of an explosion, and that they discovered a copy of the letter on Duhaime's computer, per NPR.

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Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.

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