Colgate University went on lockdown and students were ordered to shelter in place for four hours Monday night while police investigated reports of a gunman on the upstate New York campus. But the “threat” turned out to be a student using a glue gun for an art project.
The campus lockdown occurred after reports that someone had “entered the O’Connor Campus Center while carrying what witnesses believed was a weapon,” said a statement from university spokesman Daniel DeVries.
The precautions on the campus of the private liberal arts college took place on the same day that an attacker armed with a hunting knife stabbed four people, killing one, on the Austin campus of the University of Texas. Police arrested a student over the attack.
But some Colgate students expressed concerns about suspected overreactions to the incident on their campus because the student with the glue gun is African-American.
As police scoured buildings at Colgate, a university of 2,900 undergraduates located in Hamilton about 40 miles from Syracuse, students said rumors spread that there were two gunmen, and one had committed suicide — none of which was true.
Shortly after early reports about sightings concerning a weapon at Colgate around 8 p.m., university administrators tweeted, “There is an armed person at the Coop. Find a safe space and remain indoors. If you are off-campus, stay away.” The Coop is a dining hall on campus.
