Pace University’s campus is tucked safely between NYPD headquarters and city hall in lower Manhattan. So the response came quickly Thursday afternoon when a report was called in of someone preparing for a mass shooting.
It happened around 2:20 p.m. Thursday at Pace University. NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller says some people called 911 after seeing what they thought was a man loading a machine gun from an ammunition belt in a men’s room stall.
Apparently what the person peering under the bathroom stall saw was was nothing more than a fashionable student dropping the kids at the pool.
Police later caught up with him and realized his belt was simply a wardrobe item.
Meanwhile, the building was evacuated. Some students who saw social media posts about a possible gunman said they barricaded classroom doors or fled on their own.
With Halloween coming up fast, there’s no telling what fashion-forward stall-peekers could see in the weeks to come. The boys in the First Precinct could be busy.