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Breaking News

My husband just alerted me to a bit of breaking news.

A "suspicious" man in a ski mask with a "bulge" in the front of his sweater led police to lock down Macbride Hall today - the second time this week that police have closed buildings on campus due to a potential threat. Officers at the Pentacrest cleared out Macbride at 12:32 p.m. During the evacuation, police located the person, who authorities said was an unarmed UI student.


Um, let's see. It's a particularly cold and wet day in Iowa. Someone's wearing bulky clothes and a head covering. This is troubling, why, exactly?

It might be a LOOOOONG fall and winter ahead.

Maybe the knee-jerk freakouts will calm a bit during the summer break.

I don't know though. The first lockdown earlier this week involved a bomb threat to the health sciences library, yet the administration building on the other side of campus was also locked down. "Just in case," they said. I don't see the connection. Then there's the fact that students were still allowed to walk in and out of the administration building during the lockdown...only the offices themselves were locked. So I guess the administrators could be all safe and snug inside their offices when the whole building goes kaboom.

There's some confusion, I guess, as to what constitutes a lockdown and how those procedures are put in place. It's a good thing these are just false alarms. Maybe we'll get it right when it counts.

Comments

Amy said…
Update...our university isn't the only one on high alert.

FAYETTE - Upper Iowa University was locked down Thursday after a student reported a man with a gun, later determined to be an off-duty police officer visiting the school as a guest.

HARRISBURG, PA - A rumor surrounding violence at a York County school prompts a lockdown and sends parents into a panic. Police didn't find anything at the Dover Intermediate School, but the scare was enough for some parents to pull their children out of class.

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