Mugar Library evacuated following phone call claiming ‘guns and explosives’

BUPD received a phone call this morning with a threat

Around 9am this morning, BU students received a BU Alert message noting an “emergency situation” at Mugar Library.

The area was evacuated immediately and there were multiple BU, Boston and Massachusetts State police officers present. Sections of Comm. Ave were shut down between the BU bridge and Carlton Street.

There was also a helicopter circling the area.

A Boston PD officer told The Tab they received a phone call with a threat this morning. They cleared out two of four floors in Mugar. Officers now think the threat was a hoax and are letting pedestrians and traffic to go past.

At around 10:15am students were let back in the building.

BUPD held a press conference outside the GSU at 10am this morning.

They said they received a radio call at 8:30am this morning from a male who said he was “barricaded inside room 420 on the fourth floor of Mugar Library.” He also mentioned the room was booby-trapped.

BUPD received a second call shortly after saying that he had just shot a hostage inside the room. Both BPD and BUPD responded.

“We went into the active shooter training that we continually do with Boston University and the other schools and we emptied the building,” said Commissioner Bill Evans of the Boston Police Department.

Officers cleared the entire fourth floor and did not find anything. They described the sweep as “methodical” saying they do not “take these hoaxes without checking them out thoroughly.”

The police are currently working with Boston Regional Intelligence to trace the phone call BUPD received earlier this morning.

“It was not a robo call, it was an actual person on the other end of the line answering questions.”

They said the person on line claimed he has “guns and explosives.” The call lasted 10 minutes.

Commissioner Bill Evans says they took the incident seriously and that it was “alarming because we’ve had a lot of real incidents across the country involving students.”

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