MSU Film Professor Cindy Stillwell said that when the campus alert went out she was in the Visual Communications building, about a five-minute walk across campus from Montana Hall, where the incident appeared to have begun. Stillwell said she and about 15 faculty, students and staff scuttled down the hall and locked themselves into a room where media equipment is stored. She said the group began live streaming the news from media outlets to try to find out what was happening.

Stillwell said that in all of the 20 years she has been teaching college, this has never happened to her, but she has been worried for some time that it would.

“It’s been on my mind a lot and it makes me nervous,” Stillwell said. “We have some rooms that have doors that can’t be locked from the inside. It should be a priority on all fronts.”

Stillwell has a twin sister, novelist Christy Stillwell, who also lives in Bozeman. Christy Stillwell said she and her sister were texting back and forth.

“I was scared,” Christy Stillwell said.

MSU also hosts numerous events during the summer, but Becker did not know all the events scheduled for the day.