- Pace’s downtown Manhattan campus was evacuated on Thursday afternoon
- Security called cops after a student saw bullets and a duffel bag in a toilet stall
- But the ‘bullets’ were just decorations on a belt, police later confirmed
- The university’s campus, near City Hall, was evacuated by armor-clad police
- Pace later confirmed that there was no shooter and no shots fired
New York’s Pace University was evacuated by police on Thursday afternoon after a false report of a shooter on its lower Manhattan campus.
A report of a shooter was called in to police after a student saw what appeared to be live ammunition in a bathroom stall – then, when the door opened, a man with a duffel bag.
But the panic was a false alarm, cops said – and the belt just decorated with empty pretend shells, NBC 4 New York reported.
Pace University’s downtown Manhattan campus was evacuated Thursday (pictured) when a student told security he’d seen bullets and a duffel bag in a toilet stall
Video footage (left) shows students being evacuated by cops. The university later confirmed (right) that there was no danger and the campus was reopened
Police were called in by campus security, who had themselves been contacted by the panicked student, a cop told the station.
The university’s One Pace Plaza campus was then evacuated thanks to an ‘overabundance of caution’.
Cops searched the area and interviewed a man matching the description of the duffel-bag-carrying man.
Footage shared on Twitter – with a prominent 2:30pm time stamp – shows several cops putting on body armor as students file out of the university and onto the downtown streets close to City Hall.
At 3pm the university tweeted: ‘There was police activity at One Pace Plaza. It was a false alarm. There were no injuries and everyone is safe.’
The campus was then reopened for business as usual.
Pace University has three campuses other than its lower Manhattan one, with one in Midtown Manhattan and two in Westchester.
In total, it has nearly 13,000 students across all four locations.