The University of St. Thomas issued an all-clear after sending a shelter-in-place order Monday afternoon for the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses.
In a statement sent out shortly after the order had been lifted at 1:15 p.m., the university clarified that it had received a “message from an individual claiming to be on campus with a firearm, threatening to harm himself.” Authorities determined that the individual was not on campus, according to the statement.
The lockdown order was given in a message Public Safety sent out via text, email and the SafeZone app at 12:27 p.m. The message was not clear if the threat was on the St. Paul or Minneapolis campus.
An email update with the words “Confirmed Weapon” in the subject line came 25 minutes after the first alert and stated that the shelter in place order was still in effect, local police were engaged and Public Safety was “working closely with law enforcement officials.”
No further information was shared until 1:53 p.m. when an email from SafeZone was sent stating that classes were resumed and additional information would be forthcoming. The subsequent Newsroom statement was posted less than half an hour later.
Junior Owen Brietzke said that he was in class in the Schoenecker Center at the time of the alerts. He said that checking in on friends via group chat was difficult given the lack of information at hand and that he turned to Fizz — an anonymous online forum used by St. Thomas students — in addition to official updates.
“The emails didn’t give a lot of information; I got more information from Fizz, showing cop cars over by the PubSafe center, but even that doesn’t tell you much about what’s going on,” Brietzke said.
Sophomore Olivia O’Donnell said that while her class in McNeely Hall ultimately continued as normal after a short break, the lack of clarity about which of the two listed campuses were under more imminent threat was confusing.
“I thought it was really inconvenient considering they’re, what, 15 minutes away from each other, 20 minutes away?” O’Donnell said. “… I guess if it was a threat to both the campuses or just St. Thomas in general then I get it, but I kind of wish there was more specificity with it.”
Bridget Schmid can be reached at schm1520@stthomas.edu.
Kevin Lynch can be reached at lync1832@stthomas.edu.
