By The Associated Press
BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State University locked down the campus Monday after a man was reported carrying a gun nearby, but authorities soon determined there was no longer a threat to the school and called it off.
An alert on the university’s Web site said a man wearing a ski mask was seen with a small black handgun.
Police in Boone said a man returning to an off-campus apartment apparently interrupted an attempted break-in, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. The witness told police the man had a gun and was running toward campus.
Students were alerted over public address systems and by e-mail, said Forrest Gilliam, president of the student government association.
The lockdown came hours after school officials sent an e-mail to students updating them about plans for an emergency messaging service. Many universities are deploying such systems after last year’s shootings at Virginia Tech, where a student gunman killed 32 people and himself last April.
Earlier Monday, police questioned a man who carried a gun into Middle Georgia College in Cochran, about 120 miles south of Atlanta. The college was placed on lockdown as authorities searched the campus. It was lifted around noon, and classes resumed, said college President Mary Ellen Wilson.