Students remain in lockdown at Ferrum College after report of man with gun

Ferrum College in western Virginia remains locked down today and classes are canceled after a report that a person with a gun was inside a building on campus.

Ferrum College President Jennifer Braaten activated an alert system and ordered the school locked down after a member of the housekeeping staff reported seeing a young man walk into Bassett Hall with a handgun, Franklin County Sheriff Ewell Hunt said.

"Basically, he told the housekeeper not to say anything about it and he continued on," Hunt said.

There have been no reports of threats, no shots were fired, and no one on campus had been harmed, Hunt said.

All students have been moved to a central, secure location, and all 28 buildings have been secured, he said at an afternoon briefing.
Some 250 to 300 law enforcement personnel from about 20 local, state and federal agencies are on campus, he said.

Students were advised by a text message at 7:54 a.m. that there was a “possible shooting” on campus and to stay indoors. The campus was placed on lockdown at 8:14 a.m. This afternoon, many students remained quarantined in Schwartz auditorium on campus.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, appearing on his monthly talk show on WTOP radio in Washington, said police had apprehended a student in a dormitory who possessed a gun. "The report that I got was there was not any shooting or problem," he said.

Kaine said the student was spotted entering the dorm by a janitor. "There was a suspicious incident, law enforcement responded and apparaently things seemed to be OK," the governor said.

Laurie Ragland, a senior business marketing major from Roanoke, said authorities were focusing their attention on Bassett Hall. Ragland, who lives at an apartment off campus, said she had seen more than 20 police officers and an ambulance coming onto campus.

Several men matching the description of the man with the weapon were questioned but were not held, authorities said.

State police sent troopers to the campus, as well as officers from surrounding counties, school spokeswoman Natalie Faunce said.

Some 300 police officers searched all buildings on 200 acres of the 700-acre campus.

"Ever since Virginia Tech, we can't be careful enough," Faunce said. "That's where we are."

A panel that investigated the Virginia Tech killings concluded that lives could have been saved on April 16 if alerts had been sent earlier and classes canceled.

At Ferrum, more than 800 of the school's 1,000 students live on campus, and Braaten said they were being sent to a central, secure location on campus.

"The students are OK," Faunce said.

Verizon Wireless donated 25 mobile phones that students could use to call their families.

The school, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, is in a rural setting 35 miles south of Roanoke, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

At Virginia Tech last April, a student gunman killed 32 people and committed suicide on the campus in Blacksburg, which is less than 50 miles away from Ferrum.

And less than two weeks ago, on Feb. 14, a gunman entered a crowded Northern Illinois University class, killing five students before taking his own life.

Virginian-Pilot staff writer Warren Fiske, Roanoke.com and The Associated Press contributed to this report.