URI gunman, Many students panicked at the University of Rhode Island Kingston campus Thursday after the report of a gunman in Chaffee Hall led police to lock down the school and initiate an "active shooter" response.
"A phone call was made from the URI campus reporting an active shooter on campus," said State Police Col. Steven O'Donnell.
After several hours of searching the eight-story tower room-by-room, O'Donnell said police believe there was never a gun or an active shooter, but he said they did recover a Nerf gun.
One student told The Associated Press the incident, which was declared over at 2:15 p.m., was prompted by what happened midway through her 11 a.m. physiology class.
"All of a sudden, we heard someone yell, 'You're a nice guy! You're a nice guy!' and sounding scared," said Tori Danielson, who was sitting in the back of a lecture hall in a class of more than 350 people. "Everybody started running and screaming out of the room, and our professor told us all to run. And everybody just ran out."
Danielson said she did not hear gun shots and did not see anyone get hurt.
Students Michael Wharton and Robert Ferrante were on their way to an animal science class at Chafee Hall when they saw people streaming out of the building.
Wharton, an 18-year-old freshman, said he heard someone yell 'Go, go! He's got a gun." The two roommates then ran back to their dorm room.
"It was chaos," Ferrante, a 19-year-old freshman, said of the scene.
Paige Comstock, a 19-year-old sophomore, was on the second floor of Chafee Hall in a journalism class when the incident occurred. She said some of her classmates said they heard screams, though she did not. An alarm went off and a voice came over the loudspeaker warned of an emergency in the building.
"We didn't know if it was a drill," she said, but then an administrator told everyone to leave immediately.
O'Donnell said state police are not calling the incident a hoax. The university canceled classes for the remainder of the day on the Kingston campus and halted shuttle bus service for several hours.
Photos: Lockdown at URI Kingston campus
The University of Rhode Island Kingston campus was in lockdown Thursday morning after the report of a gunman on campus.