Clovis school threat prompts evacuation, police identify Fresno woman as suspect

A phone threat sent students and staff out of the Institute of Technology’s Clovis campus and forced police to clear 564 W. Herndon Ave. before giving the all-clear about an hour later. The episode turned on a single call and the speed of the response, as officers treated the threat as real while they checked whether anyone on campus was in danger.

Clovis police identified the suspect as Katelyn Willis, a 21-year-old from Fresno. Investigators said the call came in around 12:50 p.m. Thursday and included a threat to shoot people at the school. Police later said Willis was not on campus during or after the threat, and the school said she was never a student there.

The response was immediate. Campus officials evacuated the Clovis location while officers investigated, creating a brief but serious disruption at a private career college that trains students in culinary, technical, medical, cosmetology, barbering and legal fields. Police said the campus was secure about an hour after the threat was reported.

That fast-moving timeline is part of what gives the case its local significance in Fresno County. The Institute of Technology’s Clovis campus serves about 1,279 students, according to public education listings, and sits in a busy stretch of north Clovis where a threat can ripple quickly through families, instructors and nearby businesses. Even without anyone being hurt, the call forced the school to shut down its normal routine while authorities answered the question that matters most in a campus emergency: was the threat inside the building or outside it?

Clovis police have said in other recent threat cases that every threat is treated as real until proven otherwise. That standard shaped the response here as officers worked to confirm the campus was safe, identify the caller and restore normal operations. For students and parents, the incident underscored how a single phone call can trigger an evacuation, a police response and an hour of uncertainty before anyone can trust the building is secure again.