<p>^Maybe because the stabber was never on the loose and the campus was never on lockdown? </p>
<p>I do remember a thread on the stabber who was loose in Houston last spring - and that was at a Community College!</p>
<p>Also, the stabbing at UHN did make national news ( aquick google search reveals) Even made the Houston Chronicle. </p>
<p>"Emilybee - no one is doubting that New Haven is an urban area. It’s just not a major urban area. Providence, RI is urban. it’s not a major urban area. Rockford, IL is urban. It’s not a major urban area.’’</p>
<p>The city of Providence has 50K more people than New Haven. Providence County has 200,000 fewer people than New Haven County. Providence is a major urban area in RI - just as New Haven is a major urban area in CT.</p>
<p>Yes… the difference being someone had actually gotten hurt. </p>
<p>It’s not normally national news if someone is reported to be possibly walking around with a gun. It’s not generally news until someone is actually hurt.</p>
<p>^ It is when it happens on a college campus. </p>
<p>I hope all the people who think lock downs when something like this happens - whether or not anything comes of it, contacts their student’s school and tells them not to bother alerting their students and telling them to lock down if that situation arises. </p>
<p>And please, tell your student to flee, instead.</p>
<p>As we announced to you via the Yale Alert system, the University has lifted the lockdown for campus. </p>
<p>The incident began when an anonymous call was placed from a phone booth off-campus to the New Haven Police at 9:48 a.m… The caller, who did not identify himself, told New Haven Police that his roommate had a gun on the Yale campus. New Haven police shared this information with Yale Police, and both responded immediately, scouring the campus and the location of the phone booth off campus from which the anonymous call was placed. </p>
<p>A few minutes after the Yale Alert was sent to the campus community, a Yale employee called police to report that she saw a man walking on Old Campus with a rifle. It now appears that the man she saw may have been one of the early responding police officers carrying a rifle. </p>
<p>Besides this caller, no one reported seeing a shooter or a person with a gun on campus. Nevertheless, we kept the campus on lock down while the search for a potential gunman continued.</p>
<p>The combined police forces combed the area and have found no suspicious person. However, the police are taking nothing for granted. They are working to track down who made the first (anonymous) phone call and to interview thoroughly everyone involved. As the Chief of New Haven Police made clear in the news conference this afternoon, 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. </p>
<p>The safety of our community is our paramount priority. I want to underscore our collective thanks to the superb mobilization of the Yale, New Haven, and State Police, and the FBI, as well as Yale’s own Emergency Response team.*</p>
<p>Yale had said "There are confirmed reports of a person with a gun on campus ". Apparently all they did was confirm that they received such a report- ugh!</p>
<p>"I hope all the people who think lock downs when something like this happens - whether or not anything comes of it, contacts their student’s school and tells them not to bother alerting their students and telling them to lock down if that situation arises. "</p>
<p>Saying that the <em>report</em> of a gunman didn’t warrant national news coverage isn’t the same as saying the local authorities shouldn’t take it seriously and institute lockdown or similar procedures.</p>
<p>I wouldnt be surprised if several of the undergrads who got the “shelter in place there’e report of a gunman” have parents/family members who work in the media, so this got attention and hit the news quickly.</p>
<p>“Saying that the <em>report</em> of a gunman didn’t warrant national news coverage isn’t the same as saying the local authorities shouldn’t take it seriously and institute lockdown or similar procedures.”</p>
<p>Not everything is about you. From another poster: </p>
<p>“The whole militaristic “lockdown” thing is getting out of hand. First off, in the majority of these cases it probably isnt helpful. People would be better off fleeing the area of danger.”</p>
<p>“I wouldnt be surprised if several of the undergrads who got the “shelter in place there’e report of a gunman” have parents/family members who work in the media, so this got attention and hit the news quickly”</p>
<p>Every local newsroom (TV, newspapers) monitors police communications. It then likely went out over the wire (or however it is done now) and was picked up by other news outlets and reported because its…well…Yale. A major university in the US.</p>
<p>It was picked up because it happened a few hours before the release of the detailed forensics report on Adam Lanza, the deranged gunman who mowed down 20 6 year olds less than a year ago, 20 miles away from the Yale campus. The media has been reporting on the release of this document for weeks.</p>
<p>Now it’s been released. The kid was obsessed with violent video games, was a recluse, his mother was planning to buy him a gun for Christmas, he was not cooperating with either therapy, meds, or any other interventions but had been studying mass murders and violent deaths of children for months.</p>
<p>Any questions? That’s why this became a national story-- there were already reporters in place for the “Gun Violence in CT story on November 25th”-- and then the Yale phone call/hoax happened. Timing, location, proximity-- and local communities still in mourning.</p>
<p>You guys are awfully callous to think that this is some Ivy league conspiracy, or to be debating whether or not New Haven is an actual city. Have a heart.</p>
<p>When I heard this report came from a pay phone from someone who refused to give his name, I thought it did not seem credible. Of course the authorities still must take it seriously, but it just seemed really sketchy from the get go.</p>
<p>The whole thing was extremely sketchy- it was a pay phone not close to the campus from someone claiming his <em>roommate</em> was going to shoot up the place. If it is your room mate why the anonymity- obviously you get id’ed as soon as they pick up the guy. </p>
<p>If someone was hoaxing the school they couldnt have hoped for a better over reaction. </p>
<p>This incident began with a phone call saying that a person was planning to shoot people on the Yale campus. While it’s regrettable that we have to give so much power to people who make phone calls like this, I don’t see any alternative, because if you don’t react, and there is a shooting, the same people who today are saying you overreacted will say you didn’t do enough. It sounds like this case was exacerbated when somebody saw a person with a gun–probably a police responder. And there were also other rumors, which is typical. Personally, I don’t find anybody to criticize in this situation except for the person who made the call-assuming that it was a hoax.</p>
Or maybe you ignore the people who will criticize you whatever you do. I have to say that I was happy to see how comprehensive the response was–hopefully it will be the same if, God forbid, something real happens.</p>
<p>Wait, is it because Yale is a major university or is it because New Haven is a major urban area? I’m so confused. But mostly thankful that it did turn out to be a hoax and that everyone is safe. Like Hunt, I say better safe than sorry, and better to overreact than underreact. I wouldn’t want to be the chief of public safety or whatever the appropriate title is of a college and have to make these kinds of calls and deal with all the whiners after the fact when it turned out to be nothing.</p>
<p>I’m sympathetic to the idea that we’re overreacting to all kinds of dangers, but nobody can be the one to decide to react less. That’s the problem. Look what happened when TSA said that it was silly to ban tiny knives from airplanes.</p>
<p>What will New Haven and Yale do if this guy starts making the same phone call every few days? That will be a tough one.</p>