Law Center is no stranger to security scares

Fear of a gunman led police to lock down campus. Life at the Law Center returned to normal just a few hours after fears of an armed gunman sparked a campus lockdown.

The incident, which occurred almost exactly one year after D.C. police officers held a 1L Gewirz resident at gunpoint because of a campus gunman report, began midday on Friday, Sep. 30.

In an interview with the Law Weekly, Public Safety Director Edward Piper said that at 12:30 pm, D.C. law enforcement warned his office that a black male armed with an assault rifle “was possibly walking around the area of 2nd and D,” an intersection within a few blocks of the Law Center.

Local law enforcement advised Georgetown to “get all of our campus population inside the buildings immediately,” Piper said.

Campus police officers used bullhorns to do just that, warning everyone outside to immediately move indoors. Afterward, just after 1:00 pm, the Public Safety Department began contacting the Law Center community by phone and email.

Students who had signed up for Georgetown’s emergency alert system received a text message about the potential threat as well as an automated phone call. All members of the community received email alerts.

In an email sent at 1:14 pm, Piper wrote, “We have just received word from Capitol Police that a black mail armed with a firearm has been spotted on campus. STAY INSIDE AND WAY FROM WINDOWS!”

“After that,” Piper told the Law Weekly, “we waited to get the all clear from local area law enforcement. We received that around 1:30.”

At that point, Public Safety passed word to the community and students, faculty and staff then trickled back outside.

No gunman was ever spotted on campus, Piper said. The director also said that he did not know what originally led local law enforcement to fear that a gunman was nearby, but a local ABC News affiliate reported Friday that “someone from the law school campus” had called police to report the sighting of an armed man.

The Law Center is no stranger to such security alerts. Last semester, a bomb threat at a local homeless shelter sparked an on-campus security alert. Also last semester, New Jersey Avenue was shut down because of a suspicious package at the nearby Bureau of Prisons. Firetrucks, a HAZMAT vehicle, and police cars blocked the street for nearly an hour before determining that the scare was a false alarm.

Perhaps most seriously, in the fall of 2010, D.C. police swarmed campus in response to a report of a gunman in Gewirz Hall. Upon arriving, the Metro police officers-who had not previously warned the Department of Public Safety about the threat-spotted a man on Gewirz’s eleventh floor holding a black object. The officers held that man at gunpoint, detained him, and then released him upon learning that he was a 1L talking to his father on a cell phone.

When the Law Weekly asked Director Piper what he thought about his Department’s response to this latest security alert, Piper said that, “all things considered,” he was satisfied.

Piper also summarized his Department’s overarching future security strategy with a simple motto: “Always be prepared.