The sidewalk talk initiative resulted in sidewalk potential threat, as ACUPD received a call about a suspicious box in front of Moody.

In the 13 years that Chief Jimmy Ellison has been a part of ACUPD, he has never heard of any bomb threats on or around the ACU campus.

“The positive thing here is that people are observant and report suspicious activity,” Ellison said.

A staff member mistook the small chalk box set out for student use by the benches in front of Moody for a small bomb, resulting in police officers investigating the suspicious box, which they found to be merely a chalk box.

Ellison mentioned that while ACUPD has had a few suspicious devices reported, they have all resulted to be completely harmless. He also said that the bulk of these calls were soon after the attacks of 9/11, when people were on a more high-alert.

Lieutenant Randy Motz added that while reporting suspicious activity is a good thing, making a false report about a bomb threat is a very serious matter and can result in a Class A misdemeanor.

Class A misdemeanor is the most serious, non-felony offense which can result in the defendant paying up to a $4,000 fine and spending up to a year in jail.

The Texas Penal Code Section 42.06 states, “an offense under False Alarm or Report is a Class A misdemeanor unless the false report is of an emergency involving a public primary or secondary school, public communications, public water, gas, or power supply or other public service, in which even the offense is a state jail felony.”

Chief Ellison said that a simple solution to avoid this in the future would be to make the chalk box less suspicious looking or placing it in a less suspicious manner.

“We definitely don’t want to be accused of chalk harassment, but we’re glad that that’s all it comes down to,” said Ellison. “So, thankfully, the score lies at 1-0, chalk to bombs.”