Swatting incident disrupted University of Colorado Boulder campus for over 3 hours, police say there's no threat
Police at the University of Colorado Boulder said Monday night there is no threat after a swatting incident resulted in a disruption on campus that lasted for more than three hours. They said the situation was part of a "string of hoaxes directed at campuses around the country with false active-harmer reports."
Just before 5 p.m. the CU Boulder Police Department says someone contacted the campus's emergency response team and said they heard gunshots coming from Norlin Library. That person said they were at Sewall Hall.
Shortly after that, officials put a shelter-in-place order in effect for the main campus. Law enforcement officers from CUPD and several other departments responded to the library area of campus and didn't find any suspect or anyone who was hurt. After an extensive search at several buildings turned up nothing out of the ordinary, the order was lifted. Norlin Library, however remained closed. CUPD said in a news release that the library will reopen on Tuesday morning.
CU Police tell CBS Colorado's Your Boulder Reporter Sarah Horbacewicz that police responded to the threat immediately after it was called in, however, they say they received conflicting information coming into dispatch at the time of the call. CUPD explained that the University issued the shelter-in-place alert after they had already responded to the library, as public safety worked to confirm the information around the potentially active threat to campus.
"You could see, like, cops running in with guns and shields. And so, like, we went over to, like, the area where they were going, and they instantly told us to get out," said one CU Boulder student.
So far, there's no word on who might be responsible for the hoax.
CU Boulder classes started for the fall semester last Thursday. Patrick Dawson, a student journalist, said he was working to share information with parents and friends during the ordeal.
"When you see a bunch of cop cars rolling up today, SWAT vehicles, people in TAG gear with long rifles, then you kind of remember like, oh, like, just me being a student like that, kind of might put a target on my back just because I exist on a campus," Dawson said.
There have been multiple American universities this month that have seen swatting hoaxes. That includes schools in South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.
Anyone who left items in the library when the order went into place were being given an opportunity to get them out by meeting police on the east side of the building. Officers will escort them to get their belongings. Anyone who is unable to get to the library before 11 p.m. on Monday is instructed to go to the library's security office on the second floor during open hours on Tuesday.
"All of us are always constantly living under the umbrella of, we're students in America. We could be victims, it could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week. And so for them to kind of put us in that mindset of, oh, shoot, now we have to run, hide, fight, like, and they don't need to," said Dawson.
Students, faculty and staff should expect an increased police presence at the library and the residence halls this week as a result of the incident, CUPD said.
CUPD, Boulder Police, Boulder Fire, and Boulder County Sheriff's Office all assisted in the situation on campus Monday.