USU False Alarm Tweet Quickly Walked Back

LOGAN, Utah – An official twitter account for Utah State University posted Wednesday afternoon about a “Code Blue.”

The tweet read “We’ve received reports of an armed aggressor on the USU Logan campus. Run, hide, or fight. Police responding. More info to come.”

Eight minutes after their initial tweet, USU tweeted an “all clear” from the same account.

Code Blue: We’ve received reports of an armed aggressor on the USU Logan campus. Run, hide, or fight. Police responding. More info to come.

— Utah State University (@USUAggies) February 20, 2019

All Clear: During testing of the Code Blue system, an alert was accidentally sent. Disregard previous message. Resume normal activities.

— Utah State University (@USUAggies) February 20, 2019

The attribute the false alarm to an alert accidentally sent out during a test.

They have instructed students and faculty to resume normal activities.

The university issued a statement online shortly after:

During installation of new emergency alert buttons today, a message about an armed aggressor was accidentally sent to the USU Logan campus. An all-clear alert was sent out within minutes to let the campus know it was a false alarm.

USU recently purchased a new system to send out emergency notifications rapidly in the event of a campus emergency such as an armed aggressor. The system includes buttons attached to the wall at USU Public Safety dispatch. In a real emergency, a message could be sent quickly when someone calls 911.