UB Police say all clear after gun alert

AMHERST, N.Y. (WIVB) - The search for a possible gunman on the UB North Campus ended with an "all clear" message.

But the campus was on edge earlier after the university sent out an alert by text message, e-mail and the UB website. The simple message said "UB Police have evacuated Lockwood Library on North Campus. Please stay away until further notice."

These images posted on YouTube show police methodically searching the library after getting reports of a man with a gun. Was there actually a gunman on the loose earlier?

Police at the university are actually leaving open the possibility that maybe it was a man with a gun, but they say probably not. They searched the five-story Lockwood Library four times over and didn't find a trace of him.

It started at about 4:30 p.m. inside the library. Police responded to a report of a man with a gun, Apparently, police could even see on surveillance video a man who appeared to be carrying a shotgun into the library. That's according to Library Safety Manager Ken Hood.

Hood said, "From what I know they identified the person as a white male with a shotgun."

The library was evacuated and all evening classes were canceled.

UB Spectrum Editor Steve Martn said, "Police came in and told everyone to get out. They all went running out and they heard no gun shots. Everyone I spoke to didn't see anyone, but they heard screaming. That's all we know. So I don't know if it was just from the scare of the threat or if there was an actual incident."

Paul Moskal described his experience as, "So we went into Tim Horton's and we tried to come out this side of the Tim Horton's that we're standing on now, and there was a cop there with a large gun saying that we had to stay inside, that we couldn't leave."

News 4 obtained video of police searching the five-story library for hours, carefully searching for a gunman.

"It's a maze on campus. It has internal corridors and tunnels and such. There's nothing saying that the person that is seen on the surveillance video couldn't have gone out the door with the rest of the people," said Hood.

But by 8 p.m., police gave the all clear.

Joe Brennan, UB Spokesman, said, "UB Police completed the search of the Lockwood Library. No suspicious person was found. The police have determined that there is no threat to campus and that it will be safe to resume activities. So classes will resume tomorrow."

It was a student that saw what he believed was a man with a gun, but the police actually rewound the surveillance tape and agreed that it did appear to be a man with a gun. It wasn't until about an hour and a half later that they took that witness and showed him the surveillance tape and he said he couldn't be sure that that is what he saw. That and given the fact that they combed the building four times is why they gave the all clear.