A bomb in a food-delivery robot? OSU said they’ve made an arrest
Oct 25, 2023, 10:47 AM
Oregon State University (oregonstate.edu)
(oregonstate.edu)
Officials at Oregon State University said that a person suspected of threatening to place a bomb in a food-delivery robot has been arrested.
Officials sent out an urgent alert on Tuesday about a bomb threat in a Starship autonomous delivery vehicle.
The San Francisco-based Starship company provides the campus with food-delivery robots. It has suspended service while police investigate.
Urgent OSU Alert: Bomb Threat in Starship food delivery robots. Do not open robots. Avoid all robots until further notice. Public Safety is responding.
— Oregon State University (@OregonState) October 24, 2023
The post on X said people should avoid all of the robots until further notice.
About an hour later, the university said that the robots had been isolated and that technicians were investigating. Officials later said people could resume their activities and that a person had been arrested.
After investigating, officials said in a statement later in the afternoon, the university’s Department of Public Safety arrested a person believed to be responsible for the threat. Officials didn’t say whether the person was a student and didn’t release the person’s name.
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Starship Technologies said in an email earlier Tuesday afternoon that a student at Oregon State sent a bomb threat through social media that involved the campus robots.
The student has since said it was a joke and a prank.
Starship has contracted with the university’s housing and dining services since 2020. About 75 robots deliver food to people on campus who order it, university officials said.
“You unlock it, get your food, and then off it goes to get sanitized and prepare for another delivery,” Kerry Paterson, director of OSU’s residential dining and university catering, told KOIN-TV in 2020 about the robots.
Starship said earlier this month that the robots had rolled onto nearly 50 college campuses in the U.S., serving over 1 million students.
Contributing: The Associated Press
