Video: New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman says the evidence is leaning towards a hoax
TORONTO – A lockdown was lifted across Yale University after reports of a gunman on or near the Old Campus at Yale Monday morning.
Police have not found a gunman, but New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman told a news conference Monday afternoon that the campus is safe.
Officer David Hartman, a New Haven Police spokesman, said police received a call from an anonymous male at 9:30 a.m. stating that his roommate was “en route to the Yale university campus with the intention of shooting people.”
The site said the anonymous call came from a phone booth in the 300 block of Columbus Avenue, and Hartman added the caller did not identify himself when asked.
At least two witnesses reported a man with a long gun (rifle or shotgun) in the area. The witnesses are being interviewed by detectives, said Hartman, who added it was possible the armed person they saw was just an officer responding to the initial call.
“If it was a prank call that started this chain of events, the authorities intend to prosecute the individual to the fullest extent of the law,” wrote Yale’s Vice President Linda Koch Lorimer in a statement Monday evening.
Lorimer added police have found no suspicious person in the area, but are working to track down the person who made the anonymous call.
The Old Campus area was the last to have “shelter-in-place orders” lifted as police conducted a room-to-room search.
“When they knock on your door, a Yale Police Officer will slip their Yale ID under the door. Please cooperate. In some cases, Police may use keys, but they will identify themselves,” said an emergency alert message from the university.
There have been no reports of injuries or gunfire.
According to Yale’s academic calendar, students are on November recess, which started Nov. 23 and runs until Dec. 2.
Police advise anyone with information to call 911 immediately.
Photos from the scene earlier in the day captured the police presence on campus:
https://twitter.com/TheTownsFinest/status/405016898620104705
Yale has been the target of violence in the past. In May 2003, a bomb damaged an empty classroom and reading room at the law school.
Yale professor David J. Gelernter was seriously injured in 1993, when a mail bomb mailed by Theodore Kaczynski, the man known as the Unabomber, exploded in his campus office.
With a file from The Associated Press
Comments