A gunman with a "long rifle" and "body armor" was reportedly sighted skulking around the Main Group Building of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 23.
The unsettling information was received and investigated by the Cambridge Police.
MIT's own Emergency Information site announced the sighting at 9:22 a.m. ET, recommending that anyone nearby should "stay indoors and shelter in place and report suspicious activity to the campus police dispatch at 617 253 1212 or dial 100 from a campus phone."
"Multiple law enforcement agencies have responded," states Emergency Information.
An update to the site at 10:45 a.m. ET states an "all clear" was issued by Cambridge Police, with MIT "returning to normal operations. MIT Police will continue to monitor the campus."
Cambridge Police employed its official Twitter account, @CambridgePolice, to make the following proclamation: "Scene is clear. Call unfounded. No threat to public safety in #CambMA #MIT."
The pronouncement, made at 10:19 a.m. ET, was already retweeted nearly 500 times within its first hour of posting.
CPD went on to tweet at 11:06 a.m. ET that it would make a public statement on the subject at 125 Sixth Straight in Cambridge.
The incident comes on the heels of a recent battery of unfortunate cases in the country as of late in which gunmen have been terrorizing the general public.
It was hardly two months ago that twenty-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children along with six others at Newton, Conn.'s Sandy Hook Elementary School. A year prior almost to the day in Dec. 2011, twenty-two-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts opened fire on the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Portland, Ore.
In July, 2012, James Eagen Holmes killed 12 and injured 58 when he opened fire on an audience watching The Dark Knight Rises at an Aurora, Col. movie theater.
Regardless of complaints about the lackluster mental health services in the U.S., discussions about stricter gun laws or whether or not the media itself has been perpetuating these mass murders through its overexposing the public to their occurrences, the fact remains that the country seems to be in the throes of a very frightening time involving disturbed people with guns on a rampage.
Hopefully, whatever the reason, we'll find some semblance of a solution soon.
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