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Police have arrested a 19-year-old man in relation to a threat on social media to “shoot up” MacEwan University on Tuesday.

The threat was posted on social media platform Chillabit at around 3 a.m. It was spotted by a member of the Edmonton Police Service, who alerted the university, which took immediate action by increasing security.

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Police also posted squad cars at the main entrances to the downtown campus.

“Any post on social media is taken for its words right away … and in this particular case we felt it was credible and therefore we had to bring in some extra measures to mitigate that potential post,” said Raymond Boudreau, the university’s director of security services.

“Social media has made things immediate and because of that, fear elevates quite substantially with that information.”

No classes were cancelled, but the school sent out a global email alerting students, faculty and staff to the threat.