St. Joe’s University vows improvements after confusion over active shooter report that turned out false

St. Joseph’s University has vowed to make improvements after an active-shooter report on Thursday that turned out to be false caused concern and confusion among students and staff.

On Thursday afternoon, Philadelphia police responded to a report of an active shooter inside the university’s Drexel Library building. Soon afterward, responding officers declared that the library was clear and there was no shooter, and police said the call was probably a prank.

The university’s public safety office first received a phone call at 2:42 p.m. claiming an active shooter, said university spokesperson Liz Kennedy Walsh. Philadelphia police were notified and on the campus within three minutes.

The university waited for the police to declare that the library was clear and the campus was safe, then issued a text alert around 3:10 p.m. saying the situation had been investigated and there was no emergency, Walsh said.

There was no initial alert reporting the unverified shooter report, Walsh said.

The Student Senate issued a statement afterward that “the lack of communication with the student body regarding the nature of this incident as it happened was unacceptable.” Parents of students also complained, with one sharing on Facebook a screenshot of a text exchange with her daughter.

“Cops ran into the library and yelled at everyone to get down. I’m hiding under a table,” the student wrote. “I’m so scared.”

On Friday, responding to the criticism, Ross Radish, interim vice president for student life, announced a series of steps to improve how the university would handle similar situations.

The university will send out a shelter-in-place alert with any future report of an active shooter, Radish said in a statement.

The university was fortunate that the threat was not real, but “what is also critically important is to acknowledge that there was a gap in our protocol. That is unacceptable, and we are taking steps to eliminate that gap,” Radish said.

With the new policy on issuing shelter-in-place alerts: “This means that, sometimes, we will do so unnecessarily. But we cannot hesitate to put the campus on alert, even if it will only be for a brief amount of time,” Radish said.

The university also has begun a comprehensive review of the incident on Thursday, a review of emergency exits and evacuation standards, a test of the university’s emergency notification system, and adding a false-report scenario to a previously planned active-shooter drill this summer.

Besides dealing with the potential threat of gun violence and mass shootings, “we are also seeing a spike in hoax and false active shooter reports, making the landscape of managing public safety increasingly complex. We must be unequivocal in our response and vigilant in our preparedness training,” Radish said.

Earlier this week, a series of fake calls reporting active shooters were made to various schools in Western Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State Police said the calls appeared to have been computer-generated.

Staff writer Frank Kummer contributed to this article.