Update 5 P.M. EST: This story has been updated to reflect that UNC Chapel Hill administrators announced an all clear at 2:10 P.M. EST.
The University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill was again under lockdown barely two weeks after a graduate student shot and killed a university professor . Local outlets report that police were on campus searching for an “armed and dangerous person” at 1 P.M. EST. As of 1:45 P.M. EST, the campus was under a shelter-in-place order.
Later that afternoon, a university statement read, “We issued an ‘all clear’ message to campus at approximately 2:10 p.m. Law enforcement has determined there is no longer an immediate threat to campus, and a suspect is in custody. UNC Police are working closely with Chapel Hill Police Department to gather information and continue their thorough and professional response.” Due to the proximity to the last shooting, calling it “concerning [and] traumatic,” classes were canceled for the rest of the day.
Throughout the shelter-in-place, students and concerned family members were posting to social media through the incident, with some mentioning that the university seemingly sent a mass email requesting feedback on their handling of the previous shooting just minutes before the current lockdown started.
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“Hiding from a report of an armed and dangerous person on UNC Chapel Hill campus for the second time in three weeks,” wrote one user. “I am so sick of this. I deserve to feel safe at school. I shouldn't have to associate my lecture halls with hiding.” After the late August shooting, the school's student-run newspaper, The Daily Tarheel, published a powerful front page composed of texts students sent to their loved ones while locked down.
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Just yesterday, UNC students rallied at North Carolina’s state legislature building for gun reform, calling themselves “the lockdown generation.”
Alongside footage from yesterday of the students chanting at legislators on the statehouse floor, one UNC student tweeted, “Not 24 hours later, these same UNC students are in another lockdown due to an armed and dangerous person on campus. Every student in America is being deprived of their right to live and learn free from fear.” The national March for Our Lives organization claims some of those students were removed from the house floor during the protest.
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