Photo by Brett Bowers
D.C. police have cleared the scene at Howard University, after investigating a report of an active shooter on campus. Police say that no shooter was located and the lockdown on campus has been lifted.
Law enforcement arrived at the college, located on Georgia Avenue NW, around 12:21 p.m. and searched the campus for nearly two hours.
Howard officials said on Twitter that they received an anonymous report of a shooter on campus and “took the call seriously… because the safety of our students and staff are our number one priority, the Admin Bldg has been evacuated.” Howard’s school of medicine was also evacuated and a SWAT team was on the site, according to the school’s newspaper, The Hilltop.
HU officials told staff and students to shelter in place as police conducted a sweep and shut down several streets in the area.
The report comes less than two weeks police arrested a 24-year-old man who they say anonymously threatened to kill people at the historically black college nearly two years ago.
Several tweets surfaced from people who appeared to be on campus.
Please be safe Bison, we have been informed that there may be an active shooter on campus. We’ll give you all updates as we get them
— HUSA (@HUSAssociation) October 17, 2017
We’ll do our best to keep you updated. Join our text alert system by texting @howard1867 to 81010 pic.twitter.com/38rJf0XhgV
— HUSA (@HUSAssociation) October 17, 2017
Make sure you have a form of identification on you! You will not get into any building without it!!
— Howard U Step Team (@HowardUStepTeam) October 17, 2017
Howard U. currently on lockdown. Reports of an active shooter. Unconfirmed. pic.twitter.com/BXpLNK3sUK
— Jacob Gross (@jcbgrss) October 17, 2017
This story has been updated.
