Lockdown lifted at UI building evacuated for suspicious package

The University of Iowa’s Jessup Hall was placed on lockdown for several hours on Monday as officials investigated a suspicious backpack that was placed in the UI President’s Office.

Police gave the all clear via Hawk Alert at 2:29 p.m. and tweeted that the “situation at Jessup Hall has been resolved and lockdown has been lifted.” Officials said nothing dangerous was found in the backpack.

UI first received reports shortly before 11 a.m. of a male student behaving erratically at Phillips Hall, before walking to Jessup Hall, where the backpack was found, UI spokeswoman Jeneane Beck said. Phillips Hall is located on Clinton Street and Jessup Hall is one of the five buildings that make up UI’s Pentacrest.

Beck said a staff member in the president’s office called police after the student, who was acting suspiciously, entered the conference room and left a backpack.

UI issued a Hawk Alert at 11:26 a.m. alerting the campus community that a suspicious package was under investigation and urging passers-by to stay away from the area. Jessup Hall was immediately evacuated while the Johnson County Bomb Squad was called to determine the contents of the backpack, which Beck referred to in a news release as “an act of caution.”

Police took a male student into custody before noon, said Dave Visin, interim director of the UI Department of Public Safety.

“We have the person detained who put that there,” Visin said, referring to the backpack.

After the student was taken into custody, he was transported by UI police to UI Hospitals and Clinics for evaluation, according to a UI news release. The release did not specify whether the suspect was under arrest.

Beck said classes were set to resume as usual after police said the alert had been lifted. Monday was UI’s first day of classes, and some students who were in Jessup at the time of the incident were forced to leave class without their phones or books when the building alarm went off. Others approached the cordoned-off building during the day wondering where or if their class was still meeting.

“It’s not the way you want to welcome freshmen, but you want to show you’re responsive to any threat,” Beck said.

Emergency personnel also used a K-9 unit for a precautionary search of Phillips and Jessup halls looking for any additional suspicious items.

Martina Wolf, a graduate student at the Urban and Regional Planning Office on the second floor of Jessup Hall, said that when sirens went off, she thought a university-wide drill was taking place for the first day of school.

She said she soon realized the evacuation wasn’t a drill and that police taped off the area.

Wolf also said she saw a group of officers speaking to someone who looked like a student in handcuffs. She said most people in the area seemed calm, aside from the bomb squad.

Reach Stephen Gruber-Miller at 319-887-5407 or sgrubermil@press-citizen.com. Follow him at @sgrubermiller.