Reveille: LSU, police lying about speed of campus evacuation

In a scathing editorial, the LSU student newspaper says university officials and police are lying about how long it took to evacuate the Baton Rouge campus following Monday’s bomb threat. “One hour and 20 minutes. That’s the amount of time university administrators and police forces across the state keep uttering when they estimate how long it took everyone to evacuate campus after three bombs allegedly set to detonate around 12:30 p.m. were reported to police,” reads The Daily Reveille editorial. “Ignore the incredible volume of tweets, Facebook statuses and angry students who claim to have been caught in traffic for hours. If our administrators say it took an hour and 20 minutes to evacuate, what’s there to argue? But the number is wrong, and Monday’s evacuation was a failure that should not be praised.” The newspaper notes students were posting pictures on social networking sites that showed a completely jammed Highland Road as late as 1:30 p.m. “How University officials and police formed such an egregiously incorrect estimate of the time it took for campus to be clear of students and traffic is unknown,” the editorial reads. “But instead of taking responsibility, acknowledging their mistakes and using this as a lesson for the future, university officials seem to be ignoring the utter failure that could have cost tens of thousands lives on Monday. Instead, our leaders are endlessly patting each other’s expensive suit-covered backs.” Check out the complete editorial here.