A terrifying emergency alert hit the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on the first day of fall classes Wednesday, telling everyone on the main campus to shelter in place and follow the stark instruction: “RUN, HIDE, FIGHT.”

The alert was authentic. The good news is that the danger it warned about was not.

University police later located the person at the center of the report and determined that the individual did not have a weapon. UW-Whitewater says there was no threat to campus safety, and normal operations have resumed.

According to a detailed update from WBAY/WMTV, someone reported that a person had entered Andersen Hall while yelling. Witnesses believed the person might be carrying a weapon.

The person then left the building. Police found the individual and confirmed there was no weapon, according to the university account relayed by the station.

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That sequence explains why the first message sounded so urgent and why the all-clear followed once officers located the person and checked the report. The Rock County campus in Janesville was not affected.

The initial campus warning was posted around 11 in the morning. It said the situation was not a drill and instructed people on the Whitewater campus to remain sheltered until police said otherwise.

Students and employees were told to stay away from the reported area while officers investigated. The emergency language reflected what authorities knew at that moment, before police had found the person and determined the feared weapon was not there.

At 11:37, the university replaced that warning with an all-clear.

The official UW-Whitewater emergency page says police confirmed there was no threat to life safety when the alert system was activated. That update changed the story from an active warning to a resolved police response.

The first social-media reports accurately reflected the emergency message people received at the time. Once police completed their initial response, however, those posts no longer described the current conditions on campus.

UW-Whitewater said the campus remained open and operational, including classes and other activities. Wednesday was the first day of the fall semester, making the sudden warning especially jarring for students, families, faculty, and staff.

Chancellor Corey King and Police Chief Matthew Kiederlen acknowledged how upsetting the incident was, particularly on the first day of classes. The university also directed students and employees to counseling, urgent-care, and employee-assistance resources.

The university’s emergency system is designed to move quickly when an initial report suggests immediate danger. Its highest-level alerts can be distributed through email, text messages, push notifications, campus phones, and a prominent notice on the university website.

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The alert therefore should not be dismissed as fake or mistaken. It was a real emergency notification prompted by a report that police investigated before determining the person had no weapon and posed no threat to campus safety.

There are still unanswered questions about the precise chain of events and how the original report was interpreted. Those questions do not change the university’s final finding.

The campus alert was real, the response was real, and police say the suspected threat was not.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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