Cal State Letter Inquiry : Threat May Not Be Blowing Smoke

A threatening letter from an outraged and apparently belligerent smoker to a prominent Cal State Fullerton sociology professor has prompted a campus police investigation.

The typed, unsigned letter accused Prof. John Bedell of trying to stop the writer from smoking on a campus elevator, where smoking is prohibited. When the smoker refused, the letter said, Bedell “lunged (his) entire large body frame at me” and pointed to no-smoking signs in the elevator.

The letter indicated that the writer has brooded over the incident and awaits a chance to attack Bedell.

Bedell, 45, said he received the letter last week and notified campus police. He said he believes the threat is real.

“The letter is scary, but I’m not the individual the letter writer described,” he added. “I never did anything described in the letter.”

Capt. Daniel Byrnes, assistant director of the Cal State Fullerton university police, confirmed Monday that the department is looking into the matter but said: “There’s not a whole lot we can do, because the letter is unsigned, and we don’t know anything about the person.”

The letter, mailed from Pasadena, does not specify where or when the elevator incident took place.

The writer said, “It has been a while since the incident, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.”

Smoking restrictions have been a source of controversy on the campus for two years, with nonsmokers demanding that the rules be strictly enforced.

Bedell said he has no idea who might have written the letter. He said he is a nonsmoker, “and I object to people smoking on elevators,” but he said he’d never had any incident, on an elevator or otherwise, with a smoker.

A member of the faculty since 1969, Bedell was a university associate vice chancellor in 1982-86. He is president of both the Fullerton Elementary District School Board and the Fullerton Civic Light Opera board.

He noted wryly Monday that he does not even have a “large body frame.” Bedell weighs about 160 pounds and is 5 feet, 11 inches tall.