Police make arrest in college lockdown
A Fayette man was arrested late yesterday and appeared in court this morning for an incident last week that locked down the Central Methodist University campus.
Brian M. Baxter is charged with making a terrorist threat and is being held in the Howard County jail on a $20,000 bond.
Fayette police said a call was made from a phone either out of minutes or without a SIM card, meaning it couldn’t be traced to a person.
On Monday, police found a phone without a SIM card and battery at the corner of Crib Street and Linn Avenue, a block from CMU campus.
After getting a battery, police contacted its owner. The owner said he gave the phone to a freshman, but didn’t know his name.
Later that day, the owner and his father showed up at the Fayette police station. The father said his son wasn’t being 100% honest.
The phone’s owner said he lent it to Brian Baxter a few days before the incident. Later, Baxter told the phone’s owner he made the call.
Police responded to reports of a gunman on campus last Thursday a little before 11:00 p.m. The campus was locked down for a couple hours while police went building-to-building searching for the possible suspect.
