Campus Alert Archive
Pellissippi State

Pellissippi State Shuts Its Strawberry Plains Campus for the Day Over a Threat

TNthreat of violenceemergency notificationmedium confidence
Under Investigation

On February 27, 2019, Pellissippi State Community College closed its Strawberry Plains campus near Knoxville for the rest of the day while law enforcement investigated a threat. The college said the closure was to help officers ensure the threat was not credible.

Alerts
1
Response
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Killed
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Injured
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Institution
Pellissippi State Community College
Community College · TN
~10,000 studentsPellissippi Alerts
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

1 message 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 ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstruction194 chars
Pellissippi Alert: The Strawberry Plains Campus is closed for the remainder of the day while law enforcement investigates a threat. Please do not come to this campus. Other campuses remain open.

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

The closure was limited to the Strawberry Plains campus; Pellissippi State's other campuses, including Hardin Valley in Knoxville, remained open.
Reconstructed wording based on WVLT and WATE coverage; the exact alert text was not published, so isVerbatimConfirmed is false.
Context

Background

Pellissippi State Community College is the largest community college in Tennessee, with several campuses around Knoxville including the Strawberry Plains campus in east Knox County. According to WVLT, on February 27, 2019 the college closed the Strawberry Plains campus for the rest of the day while law enforcement explored a threat, with the closure intended to help officers ensure the threat was not credible. WATE also reported the threat-driven closure. Knoxville and Knox County saw several school-threat scares in this period, and Pellissippi State's response, closing the single affected campus while keeping its others open, is a measured example of how a multi-campus community college isolates a localized threat. Note that Knoxville observes Eastern Time; the timestamp reflects the locally reported daytime closure.
Analysis

Key Findings

Pellissippi State closed only the Strawberry Plains campus while keeping its other Knoxville-area campuses open
The college framed the closure as helping law enforcement determine whether the threat was credible
The incident is one of several Knox County school-threat scares in this period
As Tennessee's largest community college, Pellissippi State must manage threats across a multi-campus footprint
Outcome
The Strawberry Plains campus was closed for the remainder of the day while law enforcement investigated; the college said the closure was to help officers ensure the threat was not credible.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    Threat closes Pellissippi State's Strawberry Plains campus - WVLT
    wvlt.tv
  2. News
    Bomb threat closes Pellissippi State's Strawberry Plains campus - WATE
    wate.com
Tags
threat-of-violencecampus-closuretennesseecommunity-collegeknoxvillestrawberry-plainsUnder Investigation
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion