URBANA – A false threat caused hundreds of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students to evacuate Foellinger Auditorium on Wednesday night. No one was injured.
U of I Police said a person called 911 around 6:45 p.m., claiming to be in the building with guns and pipe bombs.
Alex Chung a U of I sophomore in finance and accounting major, said he noticed a police presence upon arrival for a test.
“[The] exam started around 7 o’clock and if you got there about 10 minutes before, there were cops waiting in the front,” Chung said. “Then right as 5 minutes hit before the exam started, the cops, and Julia Shapland, the professor, stated that everyone needed to evacuate and leave their stuff.”
The UIPD told IPM News the call likely came from outside Champaign-Urbana.
Sophomore accounting major Navyash Jain was not thrilled to miss the test, which will be rescheduled.
“It’s just kind of annoying that it’s got postponed because I’m not gonna be here for the next, the rest of the week and next week,” Jain said. “And so [I’m] not looking forward to coming back to campus if I have to come take the exam next week which would be really annoying and really expensive.”
An Illini-Alert issued at 8:00 p.m. told the campus community it was safe to resume normal activities.
UIPD suspect the incident was an instance of so-called swatting — a fabricated emergency intended to trigger a large police response. An investigation is ongoing.
Illinois Student Newsroom reporter Billy Bold and Illinois Public Media’s Alex Barton contributed to this story.