US’ Villanova University says report of campus shooter was ‘cruel hoax’

Students received texts from the school’s alert system saying “ACTIVE SHOOTER on VU campus. Move to secure location. Lock/barricade doors.” The school’s president later said it was a hoax.

“Today, as we are celebrating Orientation Mass to welcome our newest Villanovans and their families to our community, panic and terror ensued,” the Rev Peter M Donohue said in a statement. “Mercifully, no one was injured and we now know it was a cruel hoax.” About four hours earlier, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga locked down its campus, telling students: “Possible active shooter in the University Centre or Library. Run. Hide. Fight. More info forthcoming.” After multiple law enforcement agencies including the FBI plus local fire and emergency crews responded, the lockdown was lifted less than an hour later. School officials said there was no evidence of any threat.

At Villanova, where new student orientation was underway and classes begin next week, the initial report sent police scouring the campus and even had some law enforcement officials suggesting they believed there was a shooter.

“He’s in one of these buildings. Law enforcement for the entire tri-state area is here. And we are going door to door, room to room if we have to, to take this situation under control and to make this campus safe,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told WPVI-TV.

At a news conference later, Stollsteimer said authorities will conduct a full investigation.

“If this was indeed a cruel hoax, this is a crime,” he said.

“This is every parent’s nightmare, right? You’re sending your kid off to college, sometimes for their first day, and you get an alert that there could be a shooter on the campus,” he said.

Courtenay Harris Bond was walking near the law school with her husband and son, a freshman, when word spread of the supposed shooting.

“Really tough way to start freshman year at college,” she said shortly after being given the all-clear to leave the bookstore where the family spent the lockdown.

Villanova is a private Catholic university in the Philadelphia suburbs. It borders Lower Merion Township and Radnor Township at the centre of the city’s wealthy Main Line neighbourhoods.

The Augustinian school got extra attention this year as the alma mater of new Pope Leo XIV.