CU students give firsthand accounts during the reports of an active shooter
‘CU police told me they had no clue who was sending out the CU alerts. They told me to take cover’
Yesterday at CU Boulder, the campus went into panic as reports of an active shooter in the UMC swirled.
I was sitting near the bowling alley on the first floor of the UMC studying, when I heard screams from down the hallway. People began running down the hallway towards the nearest exit. The student sitting next to me and I exchanged confused looks, when suddenly we heard someone yell, “There’s an active shooter in the building. Get out!”
I dropped my belongings immediately and ran into the bathroom with two other girls. We attempted to barricade the bathroom door, and all hid in the stalls. I had never felt such immense fear – my heart was racing.
I suddenly heard voices from outside the bathroom, and figured that it was my chance to get out. I was rushed to the stairs and joined a large group of students. We evacuated the building and ran across the street as fast as we could.
I waited at the UMC for over six hours to get my belongings that I had left inside. We got very little information about what had actually happened, receiving vague messages from the CU Alert system.
Even a day later now, I’m still not sure what exactly happened. I’m disappointed at the way the university handled the situation, as we did not get an alert until 20 minutes after we had been evacuated from the building. Also, we received numerous different accounts of what happened, ranging from a physical, active shooter in the building, to it all being a complete hoax.
Caroline Smith, a sophomore at CU Boulder was in the building next to the UMC, Hellems, at the time of the incident. She was notified via her sorority group messages, and quickly told the professor what was happening.
In an attempt to go into “lockdown mode,” Caroline and her classmates realized that their classroom doors wouldn’t lock, and so a male student attempted to hold the doors closed with his belt.
Upon seeing other students running toward The Hill, Caroline and her classmates joined. Once she got there she said, “It looked like something out of a movie, with all the kids standing around looking scared and confused, some people were crying.”
In the aftermath, Caroline was also confused about the outcome of the situation and what had really happened, “No one knew what was true, a hoax, or whatever, and not a lot of people were really satisfied with the answers given. The whole vibe of the day was just super weird.”
Lauren Strauss, a senior at CU, was at the career fair at the UMC at the time of the incident, and she was evacuated out of the building when the reports spread.
“At first, I was really scared,” Lauren said, “I thought that the police did a great job at handling it, but communication seriously lacked. I talked to the CU police department and they told me they had no clue who was sending out the CU alerts. They told me to take cover if I was on campus.”
Students received alerts saying that there was no threat and that the campus was clear, and then received alerts saying that it was not. CU’s campus remained open for the rest of the day.
“Campus should have closed after a man with a machete was shot on campus earlier that morning,” Lauren said.
Paulina Perkaus, a CU senior, was at the Starbucks on the Hill when it went into lockdown after reports of an active shooter. She said, “Half an hour after Starbucks went on lockdown, I received a CU alert about an active harmer in the area. [That’s] an entire 30 minutes where CU failed to inform students of the situation and keep them safe.”
Paulina didn’t attend class later that day in fear of the situation, and after reports that there was a shooter on the Hill. “It was the strangest feeling in the world walking around a place I felt safe in, on a street I had been down hundreds of times, worrying that I can possibly get shot,” she said.
She believes CU incredibly mishandled the situation. “I am beyond disappointed in CU’s authorities and the Chancellor for failing to provide information to students that could save their lives in situations like this.”
“I am also furious that the university believed it wasn’t necessary to shut down the campus during or after these events,” she said. “Not only that, but to resume classes and act like nothing happened, it is extremely unnerving.”
Overall, the communication regarding the entire situation was confusing and contributed to the constant confusion and fear that spread across campus, and Boulder.