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All clear at MIT, where parts of campus, Mass. Ave. were shut down on report of man with rifle, armor

By adamg on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 9:38am

UPDATE: The Globe reports it was a hoax "electronic message." WBZ reports the FBI and the Secret Service have joined the investigation, while campus police try to explain why it took them more than an hour to issue an alert.

At 8:47 a.m., MIT Police issued an alert:

This morning information was received from Cambridge Police that there was a person with a long rifle and body armor in the Main Group Building of MIT. Multiple law enforcement agencies have responded, stay indoors and shelter in place and report suspicious activity to the campus police dispatch dial 100.

Mass. Ave. was shut near the building and Route 1 buses were diverted.

At 9:33, Cambridge Police tweeted:

Police responded to report of man w/ gun inside building on Mass Ave. Police searched building w/ negative results.

By 9:50, police were taking off their bullet-proof vests.

At 10:19, Cambridge Police tweeted:

Scene is clear. Call unfounded. No threat to public safety.

Neighborhoods: 
Cambridge
Free tagging: 
MIT


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Comments

By Kaz on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 9:39am.

http://emergency.mit.net/emergency/

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By adamg on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 9:44am.

http://twitter.com/CambridgePolice

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By anon on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 10:40am.

Some nerd/geek testing official response times.

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By Anon on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 12:01pm.

Pretty dumb to do a hoax call nowadays especially since all reported calls are TRACED, thats how they figured it out so quickly.

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By BB from Dot on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 12:33pm.

Maybe it was a hologram. Or would that be holograph?

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By Decklin Foster on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 2:01pm.

Here are the first two ads I was shown checking this page for updated news this afternoon:

http://www.rupamsunyata.org/decklin/tmp/uhub-mit-a...

Obviously, not your fault, Adam, people just buy up AdSense spots for any page that mentions guns... just sort of funny/not funny in a grim way.

(I was on campus at 9:45 AM for RailsBridge Boston, as I didn't know about the incident until I got there. I guess MIT security was aware that the search did not turn up anyone at this point as they let me leave. We were able to get the word out on Twitter and will be rescheduling.)

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By adamg on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 3:50pm.

At a nearby cafe.

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By brianjdamico on Sat, 02/23/2013 - 9:14pm.

Only slightly off topic, since its in the blog you linked to: I really like their description of crossing Mass Ave at Westland Ave, sounds about right to me.

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