CORVALLIS – Police arrested an Oregon State University freshman from Newport on Tuesday after a threat allegedly was made that a food-delivery robot on campus had a bomb in it.
All of the food-delivery robots operating on the Corvallis campus were inspected by about 2 p.m. Tuesday, with no bombs found, according to a university public-safety alert. Starship Technologies, which has a contract with Oregon State, operates 75 delivery robots on the campus.
Ted D. Stock, 18, was booked in Benton County Jail on Tuesday on a disorderly conduct charge and was released without bail, jail records show.
Stock, who is from Newport, had joked about bombing a delivery robot in a reply to a Starship Technologies Instagram post, his father told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
After learning about the public safety alert, Stock called campus officials himself to say he’d written the comment others interpreted as threatening, said his father, Ted Stock. Campus authorities then came to the freshman’s dorm and arrested him, Ted Stock said.
“He made a bad joke,” Stock said. “I don’t know if they’ll accept that or not.”
“He’s horribly embarrassed now, of course,” the father added later in a text message to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
— The Oregonian/OregonLive
