Categories: BREAKING NEWS

Police report no active threat of shooter on U-M campus

State Street has been blocked off in downtown Ann Arbor as police continue to investigate reports of a possible active shooter on U-M campus. Nicholas Ketchum | Washtenaw Voice

By Lilly Kujawski | Editor
and
Nicholas Ketchum | Deputy Editor

The University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS) and Ann Arbor Police Department continue to investigate reports of an active shooter threat on U-M campus.

At 6:32 p.m. U-M DPSS reported via Twitter that “there continues to be no indication of an active threat to the community” and instructed people stay away from Angell and Mason Halls as police continue the investigation.

According to a Michigan State Police spokesperson, over 10 phone calls were received that reported hearing multiple shots fired but there are no injuries reported at this time.

Latest reports indicate the possibility of a false alarm caused by the popping of balloons by some girls in Mason Hall.

Police scanner reports indicate police are currently investigating Mason Hall on U-M campus.

U-M DPSS issued an emergency alert to students and via twitter at 5 p.m. today warning of a possible threat near Mason Hall. The alert instructed people to use the “run, hide, fight” method if they were faced with the threat of an attacker.

Threats were reported after both the Ann Arbor Women’s March and a vigil held in wake of the mosque shootings that happened in New Zealand on Friday, which both took place in the U-M Diag.

Billy Etsious, a U-M student, said he heard from other students that there was an active shooter on campus while he was studying in the U-M Law Library.

“Some of the students sitting around me seemed to be kind of, panicking and stuff,” Etsious said. “The word spread about a possible active shooter.”

Etsious said he and a group of students in the library went down to the basement of the Law Library when they got the alert from U-M.

Danielle Smith, a bystander on the scene, said that “people were freaking out” upon word of a possible threat.

According to other bystanders, people were instructed to evacuate the Diag, including the Shapiro Undergraduate Library and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.