Tex. Penal Code § 42.06 (False Alarm or Report) Summary: Occasionally, false bomb threats (and other similar false reports) are called in at colleges and universities. Tex. Penal Code Section 42.06 provides that “a person commits an offense if he knowingly initiates, communicates or circulates a report of a present, past, or future bombing, fire, offense, or other emergency that he knows is false or baseless.” A false report made to a college or university is a state jail felony.
- (a) A person commits an offense if he knowingly initiates, communicates or circulates a report of a present, past, or future bombing, fire, offense, or other emergency that he knows is false or baseless and that would ordinarily:
- (1) cause action by an official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies;
- (2) place a person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury; or
- (3) prevent or interrupt the occupation of a building, room, place of assembly, place to which the public has access, or aircraft, automobile, or other mode of conveyance.
- (b) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor unless the false report is of an emergency involving a public or private institution of higher education or involving a public primary or secondary school, public communications, public transportation, public water, gas, or power supply or other public service, in which event the offense is a state jail felony.