Campus Alert Archive
NOVA

Suspicious package, June 26, 2019

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VAsuspicious packageemergency notificationhigh confidence
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UnfoundedNo evidence of an actual threat was found. The institutional response is documented because the alert communication is identical to what would occur during a real incident.

On Wednesday, June 26, 2019, NOVA's Loudoun campus in Sterling was evacuated and closed for the day after a suspicious package was found in the Waddell Building. NOVA Police received the report at 11:12 a.m. and evacuated first the building and then the entire campus of about 700 people. After investigation by campus police, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, and Loudoun County Fire-Rescue, the package was determined to be a student's science project that had been placed inside a student-newspaper vending machine, and was deemed not a threat.

Alerts
3
Response
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Killed
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Injured
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Institution
Northern Virginia Community College
Community College · VA
All NOVA cases →
~75,000 studentsNOVA Alert
Official alert policy
Read when and how NOVA says it will use NOVA Alert: summarized, quoted, and analyzed.
Documented Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

Confirmed wording is transcribed character-for-character from a primary source. Use Verify this quote under each message to open that source in a new tab and compare the text yourself.

Some messages in this sequence are documented (their existence, timing, and channel are sourced) but their exact wording is not preserved in the public record. Those entries appear as placeholders; only confirmed text is displayed.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Wording not yet recovered

A message was sent at this point in the sequence; its exact wording has not yet been recovered from the official record, so no text is shown. This site never paraphrases or reconstructs alert wording. Markers like this one keep the emergency's true shape and become word-for-word messages as recovery reaches the source.

Loudoun Now coverage — reconstructed
UPDATESMS
Wording not yet recovered

A message was sent at this point in the sequence; its exact wording has not yet been recovered from the official record, so no text is shown. This site never paraphrases or reconstructs alert wording. Markers like this one keep the emergency's true shape and become word-for-word messages as recovery reaches the source.

WTOP coverage — reconstructed
ALL CLEARTwitter/X
Verified verbatim257 chars
The LO Campus is all clear. The campus remains closed for the remainder of the day and evening. Plans forthcoming for students to collect personal property in buildings. At this time, no entry into buildings authorized without permission. Details to follow.
Verify this quote
@novaloudoun (NOVA Loudoun Campus; handle @ShoutOutLoudoun at the time) on X (verbatim); official campus post embedded in the cited WTOP coveragex.comfind archived copies
Lane B flip 2026-10-14: official NOVA Loudoun Campus post 1143945911766138880 (2019-06-26 2:15:33 p.m. EDT; posted as @ShoutOutLoudoun, same account now @novaloudoun) embedded in the cited WTOP article, which reports that 'the campus tweeted that it was "all clear," but that closures remained for the rest of the day and evening.' Two X API reads and CDN syndication agree byte-for-byte on the 257-char product. Replaces the 206-char news-reconstructed SMS all-clear; channel sms → twitter-x; timestampApprox → timestamp from the post. The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office had determined the package was not threatening (a student's science project). Seqs 1–2 stay unconfirmed; not the first burst, so no 25-pass coding owed.
This is a genuine all-clear (it lifts the threat) but the campus stayed closed for the remainder of the day, so the message distinguishes 'no threat' from 'resume normal operations now.'
Context

Background

Northern Virginia Community College is one of the largest community colleges in the United States, with a Loudoun campus in Sterling. On June 26, 2019, a suspicious package in the Waddell Building prompted NOVA Police, who received the report at 11:12 a.m., to evacuate the building and then the entire campus of roughly 700 people. Loudoun County Sheriff's deputies and Fire-Rescue responded, and the package was ultimately identified as a student's science project left inside a student-newspaper vending machine. Classes stayed cancelled for the rest of the day. The case is a useful community-college example of how an unattended-item report cascades into a full-campus closure under a low risk tolerance, and how the eventual all-clear can confirm 'no threat' while operations stay suspended.
Analysis

Key Findings

A single unattended package escalated from a one-building evacuation to a full closure of ~700 people, showing the low risk tolerance community colleges apply to suspicious-item reports
The item was a harmless student science project, making this an 'unfounded' outcome rather than a confirmed or hoax threat
NOVA's response time is anchored to the documented 11:12 a.m. police report, a rare precise timestamp for a community-college incident
Outcome
The package was found to be a harmless student science project. Classes and activities remained cancelled for the rest of the day; no injuries.
Provenance

Sources

Every claim on this page is meant to be checkable. Open the links below (and the Verify this quote control under each confirmed alert) to read the original university, news, or archive page yourself. Hostnames are shown so you can see where you are going; archived copies survive when live pages move or disappear. See also our methodology.

  1. News
    NVCC Closes Loudoun Campus Because of Suspicious Package
    loudounnow.com
    archived copy
  2. News
    UPDATE: Suspicious package at Northern Virginia Community College deemed not a threat
    loudountimes.com
    archived copy
  3. News
    Northern Virginia Community College's Loudoun Campus closed for rest of Wednesday
    wtop.com
    archived copy
  4. News
    Fox 5 DC Facebook repost of the NOVA Alert (June 26, 2019)
    facebook.com
    archived copy
  5. Social
    @novaloudoun (then @ShoutOutLoudoun) Loudoun Campus all-clear (X)
    x.com
    archived copy
Cite this case

Campus Alert Archive. "Northern Virginia Community College: Suspicious package, June 26, 2019." Incident of June 26, 2019. Added May 2026; last updated October 2026. https://campusalertarchive.com/case/northern-virginia-community-college-loudoun-suspicious-package-2019-06-26/

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Alert text quoted on this page remains the work of the issuing institution; the archive is a secondary source.

Tags
suspicious-packagecommunity-collegevirginialoudounevacuationunfoundedemergency-notificationUnfounded
Added May 2026Updated October 2026Via ingestion