![]() Yale sent out its first alert message about the report at 10:17 a.m., roughly half an hour after the 911 call. He added that he initially thought the report was a hoax, until he saw the law enforcement response. The Yale campus has always felt very safe,” Schlosser said. “It doesn’t change how I think of New Haven. “It seems like every other day there’s a report of someone armed, on a campus,” said Yale graduate student Aaron Schlosser, who watched as police gathered Monday morning around Phelps Gate on Temple Street. The incident comes on the heels of other campus lockdowns at Princeton University and Central Connecticut State University, as public institutions around the country remain on alert for armed threats. “In this day and age, when there is a call, it behooves us to overreact, not under react.” “We are going to err on the side of caution,” Esserman said. He said most rooms in the Old Campus are empty, but police went to every room to be comfortable they had a “secure perimeter.” “We have been going quite literally school-to-school, concentrating on the Old Campus,” police spokesman Officer David Hartman said earlier in the day. Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins said a Yale police officer accompanied each SWAT team, sliding a Yale police ID under the door to assure people it was safe to open the door. One challenge for police was in convincing students and faculty “sheltering in place” in their rooms that they really were police - and not a gunman trying to gain entry. The FBI is aiding police in enhancing video from on and off campus, a police spokesman said earlier in the day.Įsserman said thousands of rooms were being canvassed at Yale, a process likely to last into the evening. He added that after listening to the 911 call many times, “I wouldn’t describe his words as clear or concise.” “We are going to find who did this and put handcuffs on them,” Esserman said. Esserman said the call lasted no more than 30 seconds before the caller hung up. Police do not know the caller’s identity. The call came from a pay phone on the 300 block of Columbus Avenue. The incident began at 9:48 a.m., when an anonymous male called 911 to say his roommate was going to the Yale campus with a long gun to shoot people. Yale Vice President Linda Koch Lorimer, in a statement, confirmed that the witness was a female Yale employee, who called police a few minutes after Yale sent out an alert. Esserman stressed no shots were fired anywhere on campus. ![]() and that was lifted later, according to the university.Įsserman said one witness reported seeing a person on campus walking with a gun, but that person actually may have seen a police officer with a gun. Old Campus was the only portion of campus to remain in lockdown as of 3:30 p.m. He said he believed the report that initiated the lockdown may have been a hoax. “New Haven is safe, the Yale campus is safe,” Police Chief Dean Esserman said late in the afternoon, after part of the lockdown had been lifted. ![]() City and Yale SWAT units worked with teams from the FBI, ATF, state police, ICE and Homeland Security. Police launched a massive search on Yale’s Old Campus, going room by room through the storied, Ivy League school. No gunman was apprehended and no one was injured. ![]()
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