Hundreds At Harvard Receive Shooting Threats

Hundreds At Harvard Receive Shooting Threats
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UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 03: Harvard banners hang outside Memorial Church on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., on Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. Community activists in Allston, a section of Boston across the Charles River from Harvard's main campus in Cambridge, say university delays have left a (Photo by Michael Fein/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct 3 (Reuters) - Hundreds of students and staff at Harvard University received emails on Friday from a sender who threatened to come to the Ivy League school "tomorrow" and shoot them, according to campus police.

The Harvard University Police Department said it could not verify that the threat was authentic but said it would step up security around the university's campus, centered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, over the weekend.

Boston-area residents have been on an elevated state of alert since a pair of homemade bombs were set off at the city's marathon in April 2013, killing three people and injuring 260.

University police said they had alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement.

Parts of the elite university were also evacuated in December when the school received a bomb threat from a person who turned out to be a student trying to get out of taking a final exam. That student was later arrested and is facing federal charges of making a hoax bomb threat. (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Eric Beech)

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