Campus Alert Archive
St. Olaf

Custodian's Trash-Can Discovery: How a Lutheran Liberal Arts College Headed Off a 'Mass Casualty' Plot

MNarmed personemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On April 5, 2023, a custodian at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota noticed two empty high-capacity magazine packages in a Mohn Hall trash can, triggering a chain of events that ended with 20-year-old sophomore Waylon Kurts — a Montpelier, Vermont native and track team member — being arrested on April 6 for alleged terroristic threats. Police searched his dorm room and recovered knives, a tactical vest, ammunition boxes, a 24-round magazine, fireworks, a battery with wires attached, and notebooks containing a floor plan of the Skoglund Athletic Center and plans to steal ammunition from Walmart. The Rice County Attorney's Office later argued Kurts was 'planning a mass casualty event.'

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
St. Olaf College
Private Liberal Arts · MN
~3,000 studentsOle Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTEmail
Approximate reconstruction395 chars
Dear St. Olaf community, Earlier today, St. Olaf Public Safety and Northfield Police responded to a report regarding items found in a student's residence hall room that were connected to potential acts of violence. The student has been removed from campus and is in police custody. There is no ongoing threat to campus safety. We are grateful to the staff member who reported what they observed.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

St. Olaf chose a notification-style alert rather than a lockdown — the suspect was already off campus when the message went out, and police had control of the dorm room
The phrase 'no ongoing threat to campus safety' was specifically cited by CBS Minnesota as language from the college's letter to families
St. Olaf does not maintain a public alert archive — verbatim text could not be independently confirmed against a primary source
FOLLOW-UPEmail
Approximate reconstruction357 chars
Update: The student involved in yesterday's incident has been arrested by Northfield Police and charged with making threats of violence. We continue to coordinate with law enforcement. Counseling and chaplaincy resources are available for any student, faculty, or staff member affected by this news. Classes will continue on their regular schedule tomorrow.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Kurts was named in court documents and CBS Minnesota's reporting on April 6, 2023, the same day Northfield Police booked him
The college made counseling resources available — a deliberate choice mirroring Carleton's after-action playbook from earlier in 2023
Operations continued normally, signaling the institutional judgment that the threat had been contained by the arrest
Context

Background

St. Olaf is a private Lutheran liberal arts college of about 3,000 students on a hill above Northfield, Minnesota, three miles from Carleton College. On the morning of April 5, 2023, a Mohn Hall custodian saw two empty packages for high-capacity rifle magazines in a trash can and reported it to Public Safety. Officers from the Northfield Police Department responded and, after speaking with college officials, conducted a search of sophomore Waylon Kurts's dorm room. They reportedly found knives, a tactical vest, ammunition boxes, a 24-round magazine, fireworks, a battery with wires attached, and notebooks containing what police characterized as a floor plan of the Skoglund Athletic Center and a plan to steal additional ammunition from a Walmart. Kurts was interviewed by college officials and suspended; he left campus voluntarily before being arrested the next day, April 6. The Rice County Attorney's Office argued in court that the materials were consistent with planning a 'mass casualty event.' Carleton College's emergency planning team issued its own message describing how it had stayed in coordination with Northfield Police and St. Olaf Public Safety throughout. The most serious charges against Kurts were later dismissed on procedural grounds in May 2024.
Analysis

Key Findings

A custodian's situational awareness — not a sensor, not a tip line, not an algorithm — initiated the chain of events that may have prevented a campus shooting
St. Olaf used a notification rather than a lockdown because police had already controlled the dorm room and the student was off-campus by the time the alert went out — a defensible choice that nonetheless meant most students learned of the threat only after it had been neutralized
Carleton College — three miles away — issued its own coordinating message, modeling cross-campus communication in a region with multiple liberal arts colleges in close proximity
The case demonstrates how 'Clery emergency notification' can apply to an averted threat as well as an active one; the college had a duty to warn even though no shots were ever fired
Outcome
Kurts was suspended from St. Olaf, charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree assault and conspiracy to commit threats of violence, and held on bail. In May 2024, [the most serious charges against him were dismissed](https://www.southernminn.com/northfield_news/news/most-serious-charges-against-ex-st-olaf-student-dismissed/article_eed62696-01a9-11ef-a5f9-9348c8742255.html). Neighboring Carleton College's Security Services team stayed in close contact with Northfield Police and St. Olaf Public Safety throughout. No campus-wide lockdown was issued; instead, the college relied on a contained law-enforcement search and a community letter explaining that 'there is no ongoing threat.'
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    St. Olaf College student arrested on suspicion of terroristic threats (CBS Minnesota)
    cbsnews.com
  2. News
    Police arrest St. Olaf student for alleged terroristic threats (Star Tribune)
    startribune.com
  3. News
    St. Olaf student arrested for threats of violence after suspicious items found on campus (FOX 9)
    fox9.com
  4. News
    Co. Att'y: Waylon Kurts was planning mass casualty event (CBS Minnesota)
    cbsnews.com
  5. News
    Most serious charges against ex-St. Olaf student dismissed (Northfield News)
    southernminn.com
  6. Official
    April 13, 2023: How We Plan for and Prevent Emergency Situations on Campus (Carleton College)
    carleton.edu
Tags
weapons-cacheaverted-threatprivate-liberal-artslutheran-heritageminnesotanorthfieldcustodian-tipterroristic-threatsno-lockdown
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion