University of Pittsburgh Police and the city’s police bureau responded to what turned out to be a series of hoax calls about an active shooter on the Pitt campus Monday night.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Pitt police chief Jim Loftus said a city dispatcher received at least three calls warning about an active shooter at Pitt’s Hillman Library. “Gunshots or simulated gunshots” could be heard in the background of some of the calls.
Officers arrived at the library around 11:15 p.m. and began to clear students out of the building. But the school did not send out an Emergency Notification System message to students or employees for more than an hour after.
“My regret and my responsibility is that we didn't get the ENS message out as quickly as I feel we could have or should have. And that rests with me,” Loftus said Tuesday.
Police determined relatively quickly that there was no active shooter in the library, but Loftus said he delayed sending a message out sounding the all clear after police received calls about a potential shooter in nearby Mervis Hall. Loftus said he wanted to be sure there was no threat before sending out the message
The first ENS alert was sent out at 12:36 a.m. but was blank due to technical difficulties. A second alert sent a minute later told recipients that the calls were “unfounded.”
The school’s office of Public Safety and Emergency Management called the message “delayed and flawed.”
During the police response, a city police officer shot at a locked door to gain entrance to the library’s ground floor, which has been closed since December as part of an ongoing renovation. Officials said there was no evidence of any other shots fired.
A spokesperson for the bureau said officials will “review the incident and the officer’s actions to determine whether they were in alignment with policy and training.”
In the time between officers’ arrival on the scene and the ENS alert going out, some students took tosocial media to find information and share concerns about how the situation was handled. They noted that campus officials were slow to alert students to the situation and no buildings surrounding Hillman Library were put on lockdown.
In future emergencies, Loftus said the school plans to send out interim messages advising students and employees to avoid the area. The university is reviewing the ENS system and “retraining our communicators.”
Pitt police, city police and local FBI are investigating the incident and the origin of the hoax calls.
Central and Oakland Catholic high schools, also in Oakland, were targets of another “swatting” less than two weeks ago.
