Cops probe gunshot report at U of I-Chicago

Heavily armed officers evacuated and searched two University of Illinois at Chicago buildings Friday after a report of a possible gunshot on campus, but officials said sweeps did not turn up any evidence of a shooting.

A possible gunshot at UIC's Student Services Building was reported about 2:40 p.m. Friday, according to university spokesman Mark Rosati. Responding campus and city police searched that building, and another nearby, but did not find evidence of gunfire.

"There's been a thorough sweep," Rosati said Friday evening. "There's no physical evidence that a gun was fired in either location."

In fact, the only confirmed gunshot occurred when one of UIC's responding campus officers accidentally discharged his gun outside.

"One of our officers who had his gun drawn, it accidentally went off into the ground," Rosati said.

Earlier, Neilsen Little, a 19-year-old pre-med sophomore from Chicago, was at a tutoring session inside the Student Services Building when he heard a loud noise he believes may have prompted the initial gunshot report.

At the time, "I thought someone may have dropped something," Little said after being escorted outside by police.

Admissions officer Jeanne Sandle, 59, said she also heard something, "then we looked out the window and saw the police running with their guns drawn."

Co-worker Lauren Morris, 31, said police rushed into the building's lobby.

"You can hear them yelling into the offices from the lobby 'Get out of the building, get out of the building,'" she said.

By 4:30 p.m., those who had been evacuated were allowed to retrieve their belongings from the Student Services and the nearby Education, Performing Arts and Social Work Building. Classes continued elsewhere on campus, Rosati said.

An alert posted on the UIC's Web site after the report asked people to stay clear of the area just southwest of downtown Chicago and several surrounding streets were temporarily shut down. The school removed the alert by Friday night.

The 25,000-student UIC campus is part of the University of Illinois system.

"We put out a notice on the home page of our Web site which reached a large number of students," Rosati said of efforts to get out word of the report. A campus text messaging system was not activated because "within minutes of responding" police indicated there was no evidence of gunfire, he said.