Safety concerns occupied the minds of law students as UW Police Department representatives answered questions about a message involving a firearm and threats of violence toward law students at the William H. Gates Law School building Monday.

“The law school is responding fully to the circumstances as we understand them to be,” said Greg Hicks, the interim dean of the School of Law, during a question-and-answer session Monday afternoon.

The UWPD was unwilling to release the full content of the message for fear that doing so would compromise their ongoing investigation, but did disclose to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the message expressed the sentiment that the UW is

” … training little Nazis … ” (from the Nov. 5 P.I. story, “Campus police offer few details on graffiti, phone threats to law school”).

Police were able to disclose the origins of the message and its malicious intent. The message came in the form of graffiti scrawled on an unidentified location on campus.

“We won’t release the text, but … has to do with a firearm,” said Ray Wittmier, UWPD assistant chief. “The way the threat is worded, it sounds like it’s someone outside of the law school.”

The message was discovered Tuesday, Oct. 30 and came to the attention of Hicks last Thursday. Campus police were at Gates building Friday and now require everyone entering the building to display their Husky Cards. The police presence is expected to continue until the situation is resolved.

Evidence for this investigation is largely related to the graffiti writings. The UWPD would not comment on the full nature of their investigation, but they did say they have made some progress.

“We have at least one person we’re interested in,” Wittmier said.

The graffiti threat encompasses the whole month of November, but gives no date or clue to the identity of the author of the message. Doors leading to the exterior of Gates building are now locked from the outside and a police presence remains after hours. Some law students, however, expressed the belief that this may not be enough.

“My biggest beef with this is the breakdown in communication,” law student Duncan Connelly said. “I think it’s a difficult position for the police to be in.”

Law students posed harshly worded questions to UWPD representatives yesterday, requesting more information and criticizing a perceived lack of security.

“We can make this place perfectly safe but nobody would be able to get in and out,” Sgt. David Girts said. “It’s a balancing act.”

Students suggested restricting access only to law students and those who have legitimate business in the building. Other students promoted searching the bags of everyone entering the law school, and also half-jokingly suggesting that there was legal pretext to such a search.

UWPD officials maintained that the level of security could change day to day depending on the information that comes to their attention. They did, however, agree to review student concerns and take their opinions into account in determining the ongoing level of security in and around Gates building.

“If you run into something out of the ordinary, we want you to report that,” Wittmier said.

While the discord among law students was far from universal, the student body and law school administration were generally disgruntled following the meeting Monday.

“I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a sense of frustration,” Dean Hicks said. “I really feel the hunger for more information here.”

[Reach reporter Andrew Doughman at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]