lewiston – A young man in a sport utility vehicle pulled up to a police roadblock Tuesday night near the Lewiston-Auburn College campus.

“Let me guess,” he said to a police officer. “Another bomb threat?”

The student, who drove to Lewiston from Augusta, was right. A telephone threat called in to the University of Southern Maine’s Portland offices caused the cancellation of classes there and in Lewiston.

It was the third time in just over a month that the Lewiston school has been plagued by a threat. The Gorham and Portland USM buildings have been evacuated at least four times in the same period.

“It’s costly and highly disruptive,” said Lewiston fire Capt. Victor Gaudreau.

Police said an unidentified caller phoned in the threat at about 4:30 p.m. He indicated that there was a bomb in at least one USM building.

Administrators at the Lewiston school were notified and the building was evacuated at about 5 p.m. Students who were in class were sent home. Others arriving at the Westminster Street campus were turned away.

Several people who approached the police roadblocks were trying to get to a nearby building for a gymnasium meet. Those people were provided with alternate routes to get to their destinations.

Police and fire crews set up a perimeter around the USM campus, making sure everybody was out of the buildings. School custodians searched through the buildings and found no evidence of a bomb.

Emergency crews cleared the scene at about 6:15 p.m. and the school remained empty for the night. Police in both Lewiston and Portland are investigating the incident. It was unknown if the caller who phoned in the threat Tuesday is the same person who disrupted USM classes last month.

Police said there were no threats to other schools or businesses in Lewiston and Auburn. In Brunswick, administrators canceled high school classes Tuesday after the parents of a student said another teenager had made a threat involving a gun. Classes at the high school were expected to resume as normal today.

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