A psychology professor at Staten Island’s Wagner College told students he wanted to shoot up one of his classes — assuring them he was “locked and loaded” to “shoot every one of them in the head,” according to cops and police sources.
“My media class is hideous,” Richard Brower, 77, allegedly told one of his other classes around 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, according to high-ranking NYPD sources. “If I had a gun, I would shoot every one of them in the head.”
Brower then singled out one of his students, asking, “Are you in my media class?”
When that pupil acknowledged that they were, Brower offered a bone-chilling reply.
“Watch out,” he allegedly said, according to police sources. “I’m locked and loaded.”
Another student quickly notified campus security officers, who suspended Brower, escorted him off campus and searched his office — though they didn’t find anything harmful, sources said.
The Grymes Hill school’s security office, however, didn’t alert the NYPD until hours after the alleged threats, looping them in around 6:30 p.m., according to sources.
A message seeking comment from Wagner College was not immediately returned.
“According to the accounts of several students, a professor made disturbing remarks of a violent nature yesterday afternoon during a class,” a college spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday. “The college took immediate action, suspending the professor, escorting him off campus and banning him indefinitely.
“The college also called the New York Police Department; together, they are investigating the matter.”
The statement did not address the roughly five hours that allegedly passed between the school’s learning of the alleged remarks and their reporting it to cops.
Authorities are interviewing students, an NYPD spokesman said.
Sources added that police are searching for Brower — who has a Ph.D. from Rutgers University and has authored such scholarly articles as “Dangerous minds: Eminently creative people who spent time in jail,” according to his Wagner College profile.
But he wasn’t hard to find: Reached at a publicly listed phone number for his New Jersey home and asked about the allegations, Brower said, “I have nothing to say,” then hung up.