BISMARCK -- After an hours-long lockdown of campus, a Bismarck Police Department spokesman says officers have a teenage suspect in custody in connection to threats of “shooting up” Bismarck State College.
Sgt. Mark Buschena told the media police had arrested a 16-year-old male suspect this afternoon as he was driving northbound on State Highway 83.
The college went on lockdown starting at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, a spokesperson for the school confirmed, and were released as the campus was searched. Some students reported on Twitter that they had to wait as many as five hours while the search was conducted.
BSC President Larry Skogen said in an email to students and staff that a student had threatened to “shoot up the library with a machine gun,” and that threat had been received by the FBI. Skogen said the lockdown was to stop traffic on campus to aid search efforts.
There was no active shooter on the school’s campus and all on the premises were safe, the Bismarck Police Department said via its Twitter account.
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Brett Williamson, a student on campus and former Bismarck Tribune intern, said students are sitting in the dark in locked classrooms.
"We don't know what's going on," Williamson said. "Little nerve-racking."
The college was set to be the site of a 4 p.m. appearance by Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Burgum, who announced his candidacy Thursday morning in Fargo. But a tweet from the Burgum campaign’s Twitter account at about 1:45 p.m. said the event had been moved to state GOP headquarters in Bismarck.
