False Alerts Give Students Scare On 2 Metro Area Campuses
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4)- It was a frightening morning after two false alerts were sent to thousands of students at two Denver metro area campuses, one of them was placed on lockdown.
Students and Regis University and Rangeview High School were worried about terrorism and possible bombs after receiving warning alerts. Both were false alarms.
Cell phone, text and email alerts were delivered to students on both campuses and in the nearby neighborhoods.
"We were getting ready for our 8 a.m. organic chemistry class," said one student.
She and her friends were heading to campus when they received the alert on their cellphones.
The alert stated bomb threat but didn't specify where and urged students to stay away.
"An alert was pretty much blank, it didn't tell you what buildings," said another student.
Campus security was conducting a training class on the alert system when something went wrong.
"Unfortunately one of the employees, in the process of reviewing the system, hit the wrong button which sent an emergency alert out to about 6,800 people," said Regis University spokeswoman Cindy Matthews.
Matthews said the alert was quickly followed by an additional message which read, "RU Alert! disregard last ru alert."
The initial alert made it all the way across the Denver metro area to another school in Aurora.
"It was received by Rangeview High School in Aurora and we looked into why that happened because it did result in that campus being put on a lockdown," said Matthews.
One of the graduate students at Regis works at Rangeview so his alert mistakenly warned that school.
"The system did it's job because if we had a real emergency on campus, this is where the information will be," said Matthews.
Now security at Regis is urging students to trust the system.
"Most of the time it's used for inclement weather like snow days, which is always nice," said one student.
