If you were asked to name parts of the country where you’re more likely than most to get false reports of someone with a gun, Texas probably wouldn’t make most people’s lists. San Francisco? Sure. Temple, Texas? Not so much. But that’s what’s happened – twice – at local hospitals that had construction work going on at the time…
People seem to be mistakenly hearing gun shots. A lot. From kwtx.com:
Temple police and Bell County sheriff’s deputies responded Tuesday morning to a report of a gunman firing shots on the fourth floor of the Temple VA Hospital at 1901 S. 1st St., but the gunman turned out to be a construction worker using a nail gun.
Responding officers were called off within minutes after the initial call went out.
Police said a nail gun that construction crews were using directly outside of the entrance caused an echo inside the building that led the caller to believe shots were being fired.
And that wasn’t the only example of a false gun report at a local hospital.
A similar incident happened in September at Scott & White Hospital after police received numerous 911 calls about gunfire at the Center for Advanced Medicine building.
Police later established that the calls started coming in at about the time that a construction crew began using nail guns to work on the roof of the second floor of the building.
Could this be due to the fact that hospitals are designated gun-free zones? Are people still on edge because of the Ft. Hood shooting (Temple’s about ten miles away)? Enquiring minds want to know.