CINCINNATI (WCPO)– A social media platform notified students of an active shooter situation 20 minutes before the University of Cincinnati sent out an email.
Our news partners at WCPO shared transcripts of conversations over Snapchat.
“apparently there was a gunshot by nippert/center court? idk,” the friend wrote.
“wait what,” Todd wrote back. “seriously?”
“there’s 10 cop cars outside of the engineering building.”
According to campus safety officials, at least three shots were fired during a fistfight near the Campus Recreation Center. The suspects immediately fled.
They spent the next hour searching for a suspect with no success. At 12:25 a.m. Friday, UC Public Safety announced on Twitter that the shelter-in-place had been lifted and there was no remaining threat to campus.
Public safety director James Whalen denied students’ claims there had been a significant delay between officials learning about the incident and informing the student body. However, dozens of students shared screenshots of texts, Snapchat messages and social media posts with time stamps that predated the alerts by up to 25 minutes.
“I don’t know that there was a delay,” he said. “We were moving as fast as we possibly could in reaction to the situation. Someone in the crowd videoed the incident and posted it right away, and so they probably did beat us to it, but there’s no way I could beat that timing.”
