Campus Libary Goes On Lockdown When Student Posts That Praying Muslim Has Gun

In the interest of full disclosure, I found out about this situation yesterday when some University of Central Florida students I met once at a conference posted messages to social media that said things like, “I’m safe,” “I’m home,” and, “No one I know got hurt.”

My interest was piqued but I knew there wouldn’t be any details about whatever had happened for a few hours. A while later, the messages on social media started to change and I saw things like, “I can’t believe UCF handled the situation like that.”

A quick trip to Google.com showed me what had gone on down in Orlando yesterday. Florida’s WESH 2 reported that officers with semi-automatic weapons were on campus responding to a possible threat in the library. They also reported that “the alert was allegedly sent out because of reports that a woman had a gun. Officials said it turns out, it was likely that she did not have a gun, but was praying.”

Here is the text alert that was sent out to students:

Click over to Facebook to read that student’s take-down of the handling of the scare.

This tweet accompanied the texts:

Breaking: Possible middle eastern gunman/woman in #UCF library, according to UCF campus alert. Avoid the area.

— UCF News (@UCFnews) April 26, 2016

According to Huffington Post, people are not only annoyed that the lockdown happened because someone seemed unable to differentiate between a prayer book and a gun, but because the alerts identified the possible suspect’s nationality before their gender.

I honestly don’t fucking get it, y’all don’t know if its a man/woman but, y’all know that they’re Middle Eastern. How is that possible? #UCF

— Saba Basit (@SabaBasit97) April 26, 2016

HuffPo pointed out that it’s typically not standard procedure to include race in an alert like that.

Campus police stated that it was a social media post about a possible gunwoman that sent them searching the library.

The social media post that apparently sparked the scare. pic.twitter.com/3sRw1dtQuP

— UCF News (@UCFnews) April 27, 2016

Here are what appear to be the eyewitness accounts of students in the area.

God send some help to white American people pic.twitter.com/WcWOVlQb9y

— Desi Jams (@DesiJams) April 26, 2016

Campus police have hosted at least one press conference today to address what some students see as racial profiling and stereotyping. Video is expected to be uploaded some time tonight.

[image via screengrab]

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