On Jan. 22, 2014, a 22-year-old student called in a bomb threat to Fresno City College as a practical joke. Today, Judy Gutierrez is locked up in the Fresno County jail after pleading guilty to a bomb threat hoax.

This is just a beginning of the trial process for Gutierrez who will be sentenced on July 27.

Gutierrez, who was a student at the college at the time, had called in a bomb threat to her biology instructor either to get out of class or to retaliate for something relating to the class itself.

Classes were cancelled that day and a heavy search was underway for the bomb which was never found. It turned out to be a hoax.

“We assisted federal agencies on a search warrant where all sorts of things were seized,” said Bruce Hartman, police chief for State Center Community College District.

The threat created anxiety for many on campus and shattered whatever level of comfort on campus.

“I was here that day and had a class in that building, but I couldn’t go,” said Alyssa Jones who was in her second semester of her first year.

“We didn’t really know what was going on,” she added. “ I just don’t think about it.”

But the police were, and are thinking about it.

“We were able to identify the location of the threat in about six hours,” said Hartman. “We had a federal search warrant and served the search warrant on location within 24 hours.”

Placing a false bomb threat has the same legal ramifications as actually placing a bomb and detonating it.

“We wanted to put a stop to this,” Hartman said. “A lot of people think that you can just do something like this and get away with it, and nothing ever happens to anybody; well this proves to the opposite.”