Yikes.
So a city cop car screams into campus on my walk to the parking lot, and I start musing how I generally actually find sirens sort of comforting: they're the sound of help on its way, reassurance that when big bad things happen we're not alone. I hear another while I'm walking through the lot to my car and frown, encounter an undercover state cruiser barreling in with the... er... subtle, under-the-car-body lights on followed by a campus paramedic while I was getting through campus, and I start thinking that while ONE cop car is comforting, many are a sign of a big bad thing. I decide I picked a great time to leave. Another town cop car flies by on the main road back to the highway, and then in rapid succession come 3 more state cruisers screaming down said main highway and I figure I'd better call the dad and husband and tell them I'm not there anymore and find out later what the supposed trouble is! I found out when I grab my phone out of my bag and find that my dad has frantically texted me: they got a report of a man with a gun near one of the buildings.
Conflicting reports:
Joshua Caulkins, a URI employee, told WPRI.com he arrived on campus around noon and found roughly 150 students and staff members around Chafee Hall along with two police cars and about six security personnel.
"Everyone's just standing around," he said.
Caulkins said a woman told him she was inside a Chafee Hall classroom when a student stood up and said, "I'm a nice guy! I'm a nice guy!" The professor in the classroom then told everybody to get out.
Nobody outside Chafee Hall reported seeing or hearing any gunshots, Caulkins said.
The father of a URI student told WPRI.com a female student in a classroom yelled out, "He has a gun!" The student told her father that point the teacher told the students to leave and it was "a stampede."
But then there's:
URI junior: Man shouted, 'He's got a gun'
Comments 0
April 4, 2013 1:01 pm
By Amanda Milkovits
Kassandra Burke, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, said she was in a lecture hall inside the John Chafee Social Science Center when she heard the door open at the top of the hall, and a man shouted, "He's got a gun."
People screamed and panicked, Burke said. She grabbed her laptop and ran outside with other students.
She didn't see a gun or the man who shouted.
While most of the campus is under locked, many areas appear unaffected, the blocks around the multi-story hall are quiet, with police inside and out. Some students are milling in nearby parking lots, worried.
Classes are canceled for the rest of the day.
State police issued a statement that no evidence had yet been found of a gunman and no shots were reported fired, but that they still hadn't cleared the whole campus. They cancelled all further classes for today as a precaution.
No offical word yet but signs point to either false alarm or hoax. I'm a wee bit thrown by all this but glad I decided I had enough damn books for one library and should go check out of the library when I did.
Conflicting reports:
Joshua Caulkins, a URI employee, told WPRI.com he arrived on campus around noon and found roughly 150 students and staff members around Chafee Hall along with two police cars and about six security personnel.
"Everyone's just standing around," he said.
Caulkins said a woman told him she was inside a Chafee Hall classroom when a student stood up and said, "I'm a nice guy! I'm a nice guy!" The professor in the classroom then told everybody to get out.
Nobody outside Chafee Hall reported seeing or hearing any gunshots, Caulkins said.
The father of a URI student told WPRI.com a female student in a classroom yelled out, "He has a gun!" The student told her father that point the teacher told the students to leave and it was "a stampede."
But then there's:
URI junior: Man shouted, 'He's got a gun'
Comments 0
April 4, 2013 1:01 pm
By Amanda Milkovits
Kassandra Burke, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, said she was in a lecture hall inside the John Chafee Social Science Center when she heard the door open at the top of the hall, and a man shouted, "He's got a gun."
People screamed and panicked, Burke said. She grabbed her laptop and ran outside with other students.
She didn't see a gun or the man who shouted.
While most of the campus is under locked, many areas appear unaffected, the blocks around the multi-story hall are quiet, with police inside and out. Some students are milling in nearby parking lots, worried.
Classes are canceled for the rest of the day.
State police issued a statement that no evidence had yet been found of a gunman and no shots were reported fired, but that they still hadn't cleared the whole campus. They cancelled all further classes for today as a precaution.
No offical word yet but signs point to either false alarm or hoax. I'm a wee bit thrown by all this but glad I decided I had enough damn books for one library and should go check out of the library when I did.