Reactions from USC students, Deputy Chief of Police after “all clear” given on Sunday’s active shooter alert

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — ABC Columbia spoke with multiple students as well as USC’s Deputy Chief of Police Scott Prill after USC issued an “all clear” alert following Sunday’s active shooter alert.

At 6:30 Sunday evening, university officials sent out a campus-wide Carolina Alert stating there was an active shooter at the Thomas Cooper Library on the Columbia campus — telling students to “avoid the area, evacuate, barricade and defend yourself.”

“This evening about 6:30 p.m. our dispatch received a call of shots fired in the Thomas Cooper Library. We responded. We sent out a Carolina Alert, which goes out to all of our students, faculty, and staff — advising them to shelter in place until we investigated,” says USC Deputy Chief of Police Scott Prill.

A second update alerted students to a possible suspect –reported as a six foot tall white man wearing black pants.

“I called everyone I knew to make sure they were safe, and then wanted to come see what was going on,” says USC student Joshua Burke.

“We were in the Russell House which is right next to the library, and so we were eating,  about to throw out our garbage, and we saw the active shooter alert. So everybody started running off. And there was this one kid, that took control of us. He said he’s a senior who works in the gym here so he’s used to these types of things in risk management. So he got us down to the basement of the Russell House. And so basically when we got in there everyone went and hid, and after awhile we barricaded ourselves in. And me and him were hiding behind a couch and people were in the bathroom so we were all hiding there. And after about 20 minutes we got in touch with the police and they told us just to wait there and that eventually we called them back and they sent someone down to get us,” says USC student Alejandro Otero.

“Pretty much as soon as I saw the text, I saw 20 cop cars at least come by very fast time. Set up a perimeter pretty fast,” says USC student Miles Bailey.

However after law enforcement agencies from across the Midlands responded, a third alert was issued stating there was no evidence of an active shooter.

“We had officers respond. We could not find an active shooter. We did find people who said they heard something they said could’ve been gun shots. We didn’t find any shell casings. The building was evacuated and students were told to leave everything,” says Prill.”

“Initially there were no police. Initially everyone in Russell House was freaking out. And there was a bit of a panic. I remember running with my friends into one of the kitchens behind, I think it was Chick-Fil-A, and we barricaded, we took this massive fridge and we barricaded things,” says USC student Jonny Serra.

Around 8 p.m., an alert was sent to all students across campus saying “All clear. There is no ongoing emergency at this time.”

“At this point we’re completing a secondary search of the building with tactical teams. We’ve checked the video, we have no shell casings. We also have received some reports that there have been other hoaxes at universities. We did have a picture of somebody thought was a weapon that ended up being an umbrella,” says Prill.

The shelter in place order has been rescinded but the library remains closed until Monday morning at 7:30 a.m. There were two minor injuries related to the evacuation of the building but no word on what those injuries were.

University spokesperson Jeff Stensland says USC will send an update as more information becomes available.

People in South Carolina have guns, there’s nothing you can really do to stop that. All you can do is respond to it when something like that happens,” says Otero.

The university says students who wish to receive emotional support resources should contact the Office of Student Health and Well Being.