Brian W. Casey, President of Colgate University, has purchased an industrial-size box of Handiwipes to clean the egg off his face following a lockdown of the entire campus prompted by reports of someone carrying what appeared to be a gun. Several students who were on campus during the lockdown told Global News that the information disseminated by the school -- including emails and social media alerts -- described the suspect as an "active shooter" -- male, black, 6'2", shirtless and armed.
Turns out the suspect was a student carrying... wait for it... a glue gun, which he was using for a school project. No shouts of "Allahu akbar!" were heard, nor is there any truth to the rumor that the student hollered "This is a stick-up!"
President Casey posted a statement yesterday saying a campus safety director is on leave while officials review the lockdown, and the possible role played by "implicit racial bias" during the reporting and response.
A story by Jenny Rodrigues, a "multimedia producer" with Canada's Global News, quotes Colgate student senator Tolu Emokpae as saying, "We received an alert from the school that said 'active shooter' and as you know, the definition of an active shooter is someone who has fired shots. So we were all very worried. It was very unclear from the beginning because there were no [audible] shots in the background, no victims that had been shot, just very unclear. Someone had said there were two shooters and one had killed themselves, someone had said the shooter had gone towards off-campus housing. There was a sort of feeling of mass hysteria among the student populous [sic]."
Jenny Rodrigues is not a graduate of Colgate.
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