A US university was locked down for three hours after a student carrying an umbrella was mistaken for a gunman.
A Sydney exchange student at the university said police monitoring CCTV footage saw a man near campus who appeared to be carrying a rifle.
Melanie Pennington, a University of Sydney exchange student, said East Carolina University, in Greenville, North Carolina, was then locked down from 10am local time.
The university is a five-hour drive from Virginia Tech University, the site of a 2007 shooting spree in which 33 people died.
A picture of the alleged gunman.
Ms Pennington said a short alert sent to students and staff read: "Report of armed individual on 5th Street. Secure offices and building."
Heavily armed officers from at least four law-enforcement agencies responded in force, sweeping campus buildings, searching buses and briefly surrounding a nearby house, the Associated Press reported.
The lockdown was lifted after the report proved to be false, the university said.
Police told the media later the man was carrying a large umbrella in his bag that was mistaken for a rifle, Greenville newspaper The Daily Reflector said.
Ms Pennington, who is studying journalism, said: "A lot of people that live in Greenville went to Virginia Tech.
"I think they just had to respond to it as they should because they know it's such a good chance that it probably was true.
"I heard people saying that because they heard it was a gunman on campus that they were going to start carrying around their guns.
"It was definitely a lesson in just how different Australia and America are, and how real the threats of guns on campus are."
Ms Pennington said while the university responded quickly to the warning about the alleged gunman, there was little information about what was happening in the hours after that.
"There was no official communication around and the communication from the media was so sensationalised," she said.
"All the information that I could find was through social networking sites ... through Twitter. Students were posting photos that they were taking through windows."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-uni-alar ... z1dx8Ol7Ps
Looks like rain...
Looks like rain...
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Looks like rain...
A sad fact of life in these here times. Unfortunately the authorities must err on the side of caution which is not a glowing endorsement or our society, but it is our way of life. Incidents like this are the price we pay for the life we choose and as most of you who know me know that I am a flag waving American warts and all.
I expect to go straight to hell...........at least I won't have to spend time making new friends.
Re: Looks like rain...
When umbrellas are outlawed only...
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Looks like rain...
That ain't right...
Sometimes it seems as though one has to cross the line just to figger out where it is