Harvard Bomb Threat Was Faked By Student Who Wanted to Dodge Finals

Impact
ByBenjamin Cosman

The news: Worried about your own final exams? Don’t take a page from Harvard sophomore Eldo Kim’s book. Police charged the 20-year-old psychology major in connection with Monday’s bomb threat that cancelled some of the university’s final exams.

In an affidavit to police, Kim said he made the bomb threat because he was “motivated by a desire to avoid a final exam.” Because when you’re afraid to take a test, of course you call in a bomb threat. It just makes sense. What would you do? Study?

Kim is facing five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine. But at least he won’t have to worry about taking final exams any more, right? Next to a 9 a.m. final, prison seems like no sweat.

Seriously: what the hell was he thinking? Not only did he email his bomb threat with the subject line “bombs placed around campus” and make police guess which buildings the bombs were in, but also Kim called them “shrapnel bombs” because he thought it sounded more dangerous – and awfully reminiscent of the explosives used in this spring’s Boston marathon bombing. Because if you’re going to make a bomb threat to skip an exam, you might as well really go for it.

What was he even worried about? It isn’t like he would’ve gotten anything below an A- on the exam, and if he did, he could always complain about it.

Have to give him credit, though. When Harvard students make a bomb threat, they really know what they’re doing. Kim used a temporary email address generator for an anonymous account, and even used a TOR network to disguise his IP address. He really covered his tracks. And yet, somehow, he confessed to police by Monday night. These Harvard kids have no perseverance, I tell you. A few FBI agents come to campus and they lose their nerve.

I just hope Kim’s brilliant move doesn’t give any other stressed-out students ideas. The last thing we need is a bunch of unfounded bomb threats going around colleges just because kids don’t want to take an exam. Bunch of wussies.