Hot Glue Gun Triggers 4-Hour Lockdown At Colgate University

Some on campus called it an “overreaction” because the student with the glue gun is black.

Colgate University went on lockdown and students were ordered to shelter in place for four hours Monday night while police investigated reports of a gunman on the upstate New York campus. But the “threat” turned out to be a student using a glue gun for an art project.

The campus lockdown occurred after reports that someone had “entered the O’Connor Campus Center while carrying what witnesses believed was a weapon,” said a statement from university spokesman Daniel DeVries.

The precautions on the campus of the private liberal arts college took place on the same day that an attacker armed with a hunting knife stabbed four people, killing one, on the Austin campus of the University of Texas. Police arrested a student over the attack.

But some Colgate students expressed concerns about suspected overreactions to the incident on their campus because the student with the glue gun is African-American.

As police scoured buildings at Colgate, a university of 2,900 undergraduates located in Hamilton about 40 miles from Syracuse, students said rumors spread that there were two gunmen, and one had committed suicide — none of which was true.

Shortly after early reports about sightings concerning a weapon at Colgate around 8 p.m., university administrators tweeted, “There is an armed person at the Coop. Find a safe space and remain indoors. If you are off-campus, stay away.” The Coop is a dining hall on campus.

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