UNK remains uneasy after late night gunman scare

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by Dara Newson

Story Created: Feb 18, 2013 at 12:22 PM CDT

Story Updated: Feb 18, 2013 at 1:14 PM CDT

UNK campus was on lockdown for more than three hours beginning around 11:30 Sunday night after a male subject reported to police he had a loaded fire arm and was going to shoot himself.

News Five's Dara Newson is in Kearney following the story and spoke with us by phone with more details.

Dara: Good morning, Amy. I did have a chance to speak with Kelly Bartling, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Community Relations at UNK. She says that after the alert was sent to students that law enforcement checked the campus for three hours. Around 2:30 am a followup message was sent that said they had no reason to believe that there was an ongoing threat. However, she also said around 2:30 am that they did receive reports that there was some type of loud, booming sound that several students said that they heard and even a staff member said he or she heard from the west corner of campus.

Police are currently questioning people about who may have made the call. There actually is enhanced security on the campus grounds, but at this time no male suspect has been found and they're still hoping to question students and find out more information on who that male suspect is.

Amy: And I know on social media a lot of students have been talking about maybe unease heading back to the classroom. Have you found that on campus or are students upset or uncertain?

Dara: I did talk to a couple of students and they are scared. Some told me that they woke up thinking 'should I go to class or not?' Some say they had no choice because they had exams today. I spoke to one student that said it would be nice to have more information as to where to go if they were out on campus or in class if something were to happen.

Amy: Thank you, Dara, we will, of course, have more on this story later today on News 5.

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