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Columbus State Cancels Classes After Report Of Gun

Columbus State Community College has closed for the day after a man pulled out a gun in a campus building. 

Columbus State police chief Sean Asbury says there were no injuries or shots fired. 
 
“Right now, we are confident that the initial threat has been resolved. There’s no longer an active, ongoing threat to our campus. However, this is a very traumatic experience not only for the faculty and students but also for the parents who have children on campus. So it was determined to close the building down and give everybody an opportunity to recalibrate and also give us an opportunity to work on our investigation and see exactly who came into the building.”  

The incident began around 10 a.m. with reports of a man with a gun at the college's Center for Teaching and Learning. Asbury says the man does not attend the school, and he eventually left in a vehicle with his girlfriend, who is a student. Their names were not provided. Asbury says the school notified the campus community with emergency messages, including one that mentioned an active shooter. Pressed by reporters about not making a distinction between an active shooter and a person with a gun in the notifications, Asbury responded this way. 

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“Because at that point we weren’t sure exactly what we had. We had a bunch of information coming into the dispatch center, and we had the ability to quickly send out a message, and we wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of what was going on and that everybody knew what was happening on campus. We didn’t have a template set up for a man with a gun on campus, so we wanted to make sure that we could quickly get the information out so that if in fact we did have a situation that our students  were going to be able to adequately respond."

“Are you going to look into that, getting a template for a gunman as opposed to active shooter situation on campus?”

“So once we get finished with this investigation we’ll sit down and review exactly what happened, and if there are additional things that we need to do or modifications that need to be made for our process we will certainly make any additional tweaks that need to be made.”

Asbury says there were video cameras in the area, and authorities are reviewing the footage as the investigation continues. Columbus State also sent employees home for the day. 

Mike Foley joined WCBE in February 2000, coming from WUFT in Gainesville, Florida. Foley has worked in various roles, from producing news and feature stories to engineering Live From Studio A sessions. A series of music features Foley started in 2018 called Music Journeys has grown into a podcast and radio show. He also assists in developing other programs in WCBE's Podcast Experience. Foley hosts The Morning Mix, a weekday music show featuring emerging and established musicians, our Columbus-area and Ohio-based talent, and additional artists that inspire him.
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