An “armed and dangerous” person who caused a campus lockdown at the University of North Carolina campus after a gun was allegedly waved around near a bagel store has been arrested, according to a report.
A campus alert was sent out at 12.54pm ET, asking students and staff to “go inside now” and to “avoid windows” because of the threat posed “on or near campus.” It happened two weeks after a fatal shooting of a professor by a student at the state’s flagship university.
WRAL News reported that the boyfriend of an employee at Alpine Bagel Cafe at the student union entered the cafe, waved around a gun and left. No shots were fired during the incident.
Police say that Mickel Deonte Harris, 27, of Durham, North Carolina, was taken into custody at an apartment complex north of the UNC campus at around 2.45pm.
Authorities said that he was arrested on outstanding warrants related to a 5 September assault and also in connection with the incident on campus,
Video from the scene showed law enforcement vehicles parked near the student union near the intersection of Stadium Drive and South Road, and audio of the sirens going off across the campus was posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
At 2.10pm the university put out an updated alert that stated: “All clear. All clear. Resume normal activities.” Classes were then cancelled for the remainder of the day.
Just last month, Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences, was gunned down on the Chapel Hill campus.
Tailei Qi, a 34-year-old graduate student at the university was charged with first-degree murder and having a gun on education property.
Campus police have asked anyone seeing suspicious activity to call 911.
When the threat is over, school officials say sirens will sound again with a different tone to announce along with the voice message: “All clear. Resume normal activities.”
The latest lockdown comes just 24 hours after UNC students protested state gun laws at the State House in nearby Raleigh, chanting “Vote Them Out” towards the politicians present.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools sent out a message to parents stating that they had entered a “secure mode” lockdown, with classes continuing.
The incident took place on the same morning that there was a UNC-Chapel Hill employee forum where faculty and staff gave feedback on the university’s response to the August shooting.
And Wednesday’s campus alarm went off just minutes after the university sent out an email asking the community to rate their response to the first shooting.
UNC-Chapel Hill sophomore Hallie Brew told WRAL that she was in her dorm room when the campus alarm went off.
“Texts started flooding in from peers who were in the union saying that they saw people running outside and just expressing that we all can’t believe this is happening again, not even a month after the first experience that we’ve had locked down,” said Ms Brew.