After shooting, shelter in place lifted at Dartmouth College

After shooting, shelter in place lifted at Dartmouth College Visit The Boston Globe Scroll to top of p...

After shooting, shelter in place lifted at Dartmouth College

Visit The Boston Globe Scroll to top of page

Emergency vehicles gathered on School Street in Hanover, N.H., on Friday night after reports of a gunshot in the area.

UPDATE: Dartmouth announced at 12:35 a.m. Saturday that the shelter in place order had been lifted. Hanover police had investigated reports of shots fired elsewhere on campus but “found nothing to indicate shots occurred in those locations,” the college said in a statement posted to its Facebook page.

No further information was available.

EARLIER:

A shooting in Hanover, N.H., has prompted a shelter in place order at Dartmouth College, according to a statement from the Ivy League school.

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Shortly after 10:30 p.m., school officials said in a statement they received information that a gunshot was fired in the area of School and West Wheelock streets in Hanover.

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“Please shelter in place,” read the statement.

Hanover police told the school that someone who does not attend Dartmouth was shot at the Christian Reading Room at 1 School St. at 9:50 tonight. The severity of the person’s injuries was not immediately clear.

The gunman, according to a school statement posted shortly after 11 p.m., is at large “and additional shots are being reported from various campus locations.”

“We have activated our emergency response team and issued a timely warning and Dartalert to campus,” read that statement.

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At 11:10 p.m., Hanover police still searching for the gunman, and the school advised its community members to continue to shelter in place.

Shortly before 11:55 p.m., the school described the situation as “active.”

Dartmouth officials did not immediately return messages late Friday night and Hanover police could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a tweet, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununusaid, “State officials are aware of the developing situation at @Dartmouth in Hanover, and NH State Police are on site and have been directed to assit in any way possible.”

Skylar Miklus, an 18-year-old freshman student at Dartmouth who grew up in Wellesley, Mass., said two people running by on campus said there was another shooter nearby. Another student dismissed the comments as a joke, Miklus said.

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Miklus then received the first message from the school regarding the shooting and sought shelter in the basement of a building.

“I could not comprehend it as real at first,” said Miklus over the phone from the building’s basement late Friday night, where she, along with 22 others had taken shelter. “Once I received the text, I realized it was [real] and I was very freaked out.”

Miklus described the mood on campus Friday night as “definitely panicked” and “still on edge right now.”

“This is a scenario that I’ve imagined over and over again since the Parkland shooting,” said Miklus, who plans to pursue a philosophy major at Dartmouth, just before midnight. “This has been a huge source of anxiety for me.”

Jacob Maguire, a 19-year-old sophomore from North Kingstown, R.I., said he was in his dorm at about 10:20 p.m. when he heard about a possible shooting in Hanover from a groupchat. He received an official alert from the school about 10 minutes later.

He said he’s read about past campus and school shootings throughout the US and, through a campus Democratic organization, has advocated for gun safety reforms. For a shooting to occur in Hanover that prompted the Dartmouth campus to be locked, he said, is “pretty frightening.”

He said he messaged his siblings to let them know he was OK and also communicated with his stepmother to convey that he was unharmed.

“I think my mom’s asleep and I’m sure she’ll be terrifi ed when she hears about this,” said Maguire, who is considering pursuing majors in history and government.

Jimmy Cronin, a 19-year-old freshman from Rye, N.Y., said some students initially dismissed reports of the shooting, thinking it was probably someone playing with firecrackers. Then came a deluge of information. There were lots of texts asking if he was OK, and imploring him to be safe, said Cronin, who hunkered down in his friend’s dorm and turned on a police scanner.

“Obviously when something like this happens you just don’t believe that this is going on,” said Cronin during a phone interview after midnight. “You hear about shootings in the news at other places and you think ‘This could never happen to me.’”

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.Source: Google News | Netizen 24 United States