Students evacuated the Robert W. Woodruff Library on Sept. 27 after Emory and Atlanta Police Department officers responded to reports of an armed person at the building, according to a community-wide email from Emory Police Department (EPD) Chief Burt Buchtinec.
Buchtinec said the library was evacuated as a precaution in his email, and that officers quickly determined there was no threat. Police allowed students to return inside the library 37 minutes after the building was initially emptied.
Uddhav Bhardwaj (26B) was working on an assignment when the fire alarm went off.
“The siren blew for a minute and then we heard a … electronic message that there’s some emergency,” Bhardwaj said.
After the alarm went off, Bhardwaj evacuated the library.
Oleg Panfilov (25B) said he was working on the first floor of the library when a police officer directed him to leave.
“I didn’t hear the fire alarm, but I did hear a policeman telling everybody to leave the building, leave their stuff,” Panfilov said. “I didn’t wait a second, I just left.”
The DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department was called to shut off the fire alarm after it continued to sound until approximately 7:39 p.m., which was after police cleared students to return inside the building.
This incident follows the Aug. 8 shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters near Emory’s campus. The gunman killed a DeKalb County Police officer responding to the incident and then died from gunfire himself.
During that event, Emory issued a shelter-in-place order and alerted community members to “RUN, HIDE, FIGHT” via email and text messages. The University did not issue an emergency message to the community during this incident.
