IUPUI was under “high alert” for about four hours on Tuesday after police received reports of a man with a gun on campus before giving the all clear just before 5 p.m.
IUPUI police Capt. Bill Abston said no suspect was found matching the descriptions reported by a female student, and there was no threat after a campus search. The IUPUI student told police that she saw a man in a brown trench coat with a shotgun or “long gun” in the trunk of his car at about 12:30 p.m.
“She walked up to the car, saw a musical instrument case,” Abston said. “She’s a musician so she was kind of curious and she kept looking. It was a case for a shot gun or ‘long gun.’ So that’s what she saw. The person never pulled it out of the car.”
Police also received a report at IUPUI’s School of Nursing and a 911 emergency call that reported somebody with a rifle at the corner of North Blackford Street and Indiana Avenue. Abston said he doesn’t believe the reports were related.
The campus wasn’t placed under an official lockdown and students weren’t prohibited from entering or leaving campus, Abston said. A lockdown would have been challenging because of the number of buildings on campus.
“[A lockdown] is just so labor-intensive that if we had done that, we wouldn’t have been searching buildings and searching for a suspect,” Abston said. “We sent out an alert on our campus system advising people the emergency we had and we told them to seek shelter.”
Amanda Mullner, a junior IUPUI human resources management major, said she received the emergency alert at about 1 p.m. while on her way to class and remained at IUPUI’s Business/SPEA building until leaving at 4 p.m.
She said her building was under a lockdown but she was able to leave through an unprotected door.
“There were people around the doors telling you that you couldn’t get out, but the specific building I was in, there’s a doorway that leads out to a parking garage across the street,” Mullner “There’s doors right there that were still open, unsecure, and people just walked out those doors.”
Mullner said she received alerts quickly but she still didn’t feel safe.
“One, there [were] no teachers or police officers near,” she said. “I saw maybe one or two in the building and the rest were just students trying to figure out what to do, where to go. And two, with that open doorway, it’s not really safe at all. People came and went all the time.”
Abston said he thought the safety response was successful and the campus returned to normal after it was determined clear. He said it’s always important to take reports seriously and encourages students to call when they feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
“Big thing we tell people is ‘trust your instincts,’” he said. “If you see something that makes you feel unsafe whether you be on our campus, your campus or a shopping mall, be aware of your surroundings, be aware what people are doing. If something makes you feel uncomfortable, trust your instincts and call.”
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