A college student had a BB gun in the dorm. Why are campus police apologizing?
There was an early morning scare for the University of Central Florida community after the Orlando school sent out an alert to students in and near its Tower 1 to “seek shelter immediately.”
Reports started to come in to campus police around 11:30 p.m. Friday and escalated after midnight Saturday morning about someone with a firearm in the Tower 1 dorm, The Orlando Sentinel reported.
School shootings are a tragic fact of life across the nation, so UCF campus police raced to the area to investigate.
Students on the second floor of the dormitory were evacuated, Meanwhile, another UCF alert went out to warn students to stay away “from doors and windows” during the lockdown. Social media lit up with posts. Some students called the school’s alerts “vague,” which only added to the Saturday morning confusion.
Turns out a student was carrying a BB gun in his waistband and had walked to the second floor of Tower 1 with the weapon, WESH 2 reported.
Campus police sent out their own alert via Twitter, which acknowledged there was no “larger” threat, but still described a serious situation.
When UCF police gave an all-clear around 1:45 a.m., they did so with an apology. By that point, complaints from students who had spilled out of their room, some seeking solace with a wee hours bite at a nearby pizza joint, were trending on Twitter.
“We understand that words matter,” the police tweeted. “In a situation with heightened stress, we made a poor choice with our initial language. We know this caused undue panic and stress by those we serve and protect, and for that we apologize.”
UCF police Chief Carl Metzger did say things otherwise went the way they should at a 2 a.m. press conference, where he thanked the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for their help and partnership.
“We are glad our campus is safe tonight and that we were able to resolve this without anyone getting hurt,” Metzger said. “We thank our students for seeing something and saying something. And, as you can see, you do that and we do something.”
Some students blamed their fellow student for “ruining” their sleep. “I hope you get a fake lawyer and not a real lawyer,” read one post on Twitter.
Seems more than a few were put out by the revelation that the lockdown’s commotion was “all that for a BB gun.”
That mindset led one woman from Georgia to admonish the gripers.
“School shootings have done nothing but increase over the past few years. People have died,” @RebeccaWestern said.
Eric Garner, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High broadcasting and film teacher for WMSD-TV, according to his social media bio, made a similar point.
“Let’s not forget we have some #MSD grads at #UCF who might be having a difficult time tonight,” Garner posted as he suggested outreach service for the former Parkland students to help those who may be dealing with the stress.
The man with the BB gun won’t face criminal charges, but will face UCF student sanctions, the Associated Press reported. BB guns are forbidden on campus.
This story was originally published July 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM.
