A brief evacuation at the University of Central Florida (UCF) campus happened Tuesday due to reports of a person with a gun. A student immediately called 911 after she saw a Muslim woman at the UCF library who she thought was suspicious.
The student who called 911 narrates that she saw a woman wearing a hijab in the library stairway. The woman appeared to look panicked and shaky as she went to a corner and fell to her knees. The caller also mentioned that her friend said the woman seemed to be carrying a weapon or gun because she saw a silver and black hand-held object.
However, a separate account from Jessica Armstrong revealed that she saw a woman wearing a hijab very upset and crying in the library. After hearing rumors of a woman with a gun in the library, Armstrong contacted the police to report what she saw emphasizing that she did not see the woman armed in any way. Within 30 minutes, the calls to 911 escalated to stories of hearing shooting inside the UCF library.
UCF, the country's second-largest university by enrollment, immediately sent out a campus- wide notice through email, text message and social media warning people about a "Middle Eastern" person possibly with a gun was inside the library. However, the notice did not mention if the suspicious person was a man or a woman.
Calls to 911 from students were mostly based on rumors from hearsay or text message, according to Huffington Post. Many students mentioned that most of the rumors started circulating in sororities.
After an hour, police cleared the library and did not find any threats to the campus. UCF Police Chief Richard Beary said that no one was injured and all buildings were brought back open.
Typically, emergency alerts issued by universities do not mention a person's race, national origin or ethnicity. UCF's alert that there was a possible "Middle Eastern' gunman has promoted plenty of backlash from students.
The school's message was dispatched by the University of Central using its emergency alert system to warn people about the incident. Beary explains that the use of "Middle Eastern" was not meant to be insensitive.
Mohamed Mohamed, outgoing president of the Muslim Student Association at UCF mentioned that the alert did not even mention if the gunman was a man or a woman. However, the alert was sure that the possible gunman was 'Middle Eastern', according to Orlando Sentinel.
