Carroll University ends lockdown after finding man's gun shoots nonlethal pellets
Waukesha - Carroll University was locked down for 90 minutes Tuesday after a man was reported walking with a gun on campus.
But the lockdown was lifted when police found the man at his apartment, and the weapon turned out to be an airsoft gun that shoots plastic pellets.
The incident happened as the nation was on edge the day after fatal bombings at the Boston Marathon.
The 50-year-old Waukesha man surrendered without incident when police, tipped off by witnesses, surrounded his apartment building a couple blocks from campus.
The weapon later was found and determined to be similar to a BB gun and not designed to be lethal, according to Waukesha police Capt. Ron Oremus. "These guns are often designed to look identical to real firearms and short of handling it, it is nearly impossible to tell the difference," he said.
"We take situations such as today's event seriously given the current climate we live in; especially in light of the Boston bombing yesterday and mass homicide events at schools recently," the police captain said Tuesday afternoon.
The man's identity was not released, as authorities explored the possibility of charges.
He was seen by two students near the Kilgour-Trailblazer Tennis Center on the northwest corner of the campus at 10:33 a.m. with what appeared to be a rifle, Oremus said. But he then left campus and returned to his apartment, Oremus said during a media briefing shortly after the incident was over.
"There was nothing threatening in his behavior whatsoever," Oremus said of the man. "But in this day and age, we have to take these threats very seriously."
Several nearby schools also were locked down as a precaution.
Carroll University, a private college with about 3,500 students, launched the lockdown with instant text messages to students, faculty and staff, followed by an email blast. Anyone walking around campus was shooed inside buildings by campus police, who swarmed the area along with all available Waukesha police officers, including the SWAT team, K-9 units from Menomonee Falls and the Waukesha County sheriff's office.
An armored rescue vehicle rolled in. The FBI came, too.
"I've been here almost 18 years, and we've never had a lockdown before," said Claire Beglinger, director of public relations for Carroll.
"Because of what's happening in our society now, not much surprises us anymore. It's disappointing, but this is why we drill" and have a campuswide alert system, she said.
Lauren Splitt, 19, was at the Carroll YMCA when she got the text message about the man with a gun.
"A cop came in pretty early on with a gun in his hand and asked us if we saw anything and just told us to stay put," she said.
About half a dozen students were in the gym at the time.
"Especially after what happened yesterday with Boston, I was a little bit more on edge," she said.
Sophomore Corey Garswick said she was in her broadcast journalism class in a tech lab when the alert was issued.
She suggested that the situation felt even more strange after the bombing Monday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
"We didn't think it could happen here, and then it did," she said. "I think that hit home for a lot of people."
Erin Richards and Gina Barton of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
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