Lawrence should soon be able to relax.

The exodus of students from Lawrence schools Thursday following a morning bomb threat seemed to indicate a heightened sensitivity toward perceived danger following Monday’s Virginia Tech shootings.

It’s a normal response, in part because media coverage can bring people closer to catastrophic events like those at Virginia Tech, said a Kansas University sociologist.

“When you watch these things live or at least record it so we’re looking at college students’ phone videos of shots going off, that increases our lived experience to think we’re feeling like it’s going to happen to us,” said Bill Staples, chairman of the KU sociology department.

He said the sensitivity should ease over time.

“(Right now) it’s hunker-down time,” he said.

A number of apparent violent threats across the United States have popped up since the shootings at Virginia Tech, prompting concern that the incident has provided motivation for copycat behavior.

“People’s emotions are at a peak after something like this Virginia Tech thing,” said Randy Weseman, superintendent of Lawrence public schools. “There are people who have the state of mind to want to capitalize on the emotional response that people deal with at this time, so they do these things that cause panic.”

A KU anthropology professor who studies violence and terrorism said follow-up incidents and threats are common.

“It encourages these angry people to step forward and say, ‘If he can do it, why shouldn’t I?'” professor Felix Moos said.

Bomb threats like the one that happened Thursday in Douglas County sometimes occur when students want to skip class on a nice day.

“It kind of happens in the spring when people want to be out of school,” said Lawrence Police Capt. David Cobb, adding that he didn’t have numbers on exactly how many similar incidents have occurred in previous years.

But what motivates someone to place such a threat to a school or a city, especially following a major catastrophe like the Virginia Tech shootings?

Staples, the sociology professor, said some people relish the negative publicity, sometimes believing in their own minds that what they did isn’t harmful.

“They construct all kinds of internal logic to justify this stuff so they don’t see it as negative,” Staples said.