CRETE - Tuesday was just the second day of the fall semester at Doane University, but students and employees were greeted with a report of a possible active shooter on the Crete campus. Within an hour, though, local law enforcement determined that there was no actual threat.

The campus received a report around 8:45 AM Tuesday of a possible armed suspect inside a restroom of the communications building. Local police arrived on the scene within minutes and by 9:45, were able to issue an all clear.

The university's administration credited local police and campus safety for a quick response, aided by  ID card readers, installed within the last two years, on all the buildings that only permit access to recognized personnel and let campus safety lock down all buildings remotely.

"That system worked not only to lock out possible perpetrators, but it also worked to help us communicate what was going on on campus," Doane president Roger Hughes said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. "Within one minute of recognizing that there was a possible incident, our students, faculty and staff were all alerted to stay inside. There were pages going through our buildings as well. While I’m very pleased that there was not a real incident going on, the response by all parties involved was outstanding." 

But some of the school's newest students acknowledged how scary of a situation it was, especially for the morning of the second day of school.

"We really [didn't] know what to believe. So I was just waiting for the email [telling us] to come to campus, because I was like I’m not going to campus unless I get an email saying that it’s all clear," said sophomore Aileen Rueda, who lives in Crete. "I even got a message from my instructor saying it’s OK, don’t come unless they tell you to come, we can start class later today. We were just hearing stuff that somebody was getting held at gunpoint – it was pretty terrifying, because we’re like, OK, it’s the second day of school guys."

"Knowing that Doane has the technology, the scanning, and them being able to automatically close all the doors with like a button – I feel safer," said freshman Tina Nguyen, who was simply trying to start her second day of classes as a college student but had to endure a possible shooter threat instead.

Crete chief of police Gary Young said there were some indicators in the initial call that hinted the threat could be fake, but more than a dozen first responders still got to the campus within minutes, clearing every room in Doane's communications building to determine that there truly was no threat.

"There were some indicators within the verbiage of the call and things like that that led us to believe that something was questionable. Of course, as you said, no stone unturned, we still have to go room by room and search the entire building to make that determination, but once that was accomplished it became more apparent," Young said. "Clearing that last room, making sure that everyone is safe and that we have no threat on campus – particularly when they’re [a caller] addressing a specific building, that helps us tremendously, and it helps us reach a conclusion a lot quicker."

Even though there ultimately was no threat - initial police reports termed this a "swatting" incident, designed to cause chaos and prompt a response from law enforcement - Young said an issue like this that necessitated an immediate response from Crete police in concert with the Saline County sheriff's department makes things challenging.

"We had ten, 15 officers here...we don’t have that many on duty in the county. We’re a small community, and the sheriff’s office covers a rural community. So they’re short on people as well," Young outlined. "So [calls like these] pulls all of our resources completely away from anything else we’re doing to focus on these. Now, it’s a very critical, critical call, so of course we’re going to [respond], but in the aftermath of that, now we have a lengthy investigation in front of us for something that’s pretty odious, just for fun."  

Once the campus was cleared of any potential crisis, everything steadily went back to normal - classes ran as scheduled for the rest of the day Tuesday as the Doane administration worked to keep the campus running and everyone involved informed. 

"We go through these drills every year, and we’ve done numerous scenarios, both tabletop and otherwise, to make sure that we’re ready for this. It was execute, no panic, and everyone knew their job," said Hughes. "You’ll notice that once we got the all clear, the release was out as quick as we could, because students are calling parents, they don’t know what’s going on, parents are concerned, they’re calling us. So the smoothness with which our teams got the messages out that the all clear was there and everything was safe, and the follow-up we’ll do from here to make sure everyone’s fully informed, was very impressive."

Police said potential suspects and motives are still under investigation because of how easy it is to spoof phone numbers.