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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As a handful of employees worked late and members of the public gathered for a City Council committee meeting in Downtown Albuquerque on Monday evening, a man ran through City Hall yelling about a shooting.

Someone called police. And others called coworkers in other parts of the city and county government building at One Civic Plaza. One call led to another, and another. Before long, the building was in a panic.

Less than an hour later, police had a person of interest in custody for questioning and determined there were likely never any shots fired or a hostage situation.

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“We have no confirmation that anyone is being held hostage and no confirmation that there ever was an active shooter,” said officer Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department.

Tixier said the scare began around 6 p.m. when a man ran through the Treasurer’s Office in the City Hall basement yelling that people had been shot. Employees then began calling 911 and each other, resulting in numerous calls that Tixier said turned into a “bad game of telephone.”

SWAT teams and officers from APD, New Mexico State Police and the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office flooded the area around Fourth and Marquette NW and began conducting a systematic floor-by-floor search. As a precaution, they cleared Civic Plaza and checked out every room on every floor for hours after the initial report, Tixier said.

Around 6:30 p.m., three officers escorted a man in handcuffs out of the building and put him in a white Suburban SUV on Marquette NW. Tixier said the “person of interest” was known to Crisis Intervention Team officers – who typically deal with people with mental health issues or who are in crisis. He said he could face misdemeanor charges of inciting a riot or false reporting to 911. Police believe he is the man who instigated the panic, but are still investigating, he said.

“We are going to make sure we do a thorough and systematic search to make sure we don’t miss anyone in any offices who might be hiding and make sure everyone in this building is safe,” he said. “When we say this building is clear, we want to say that 100 percent.”

Members of the City Council Finance Committee were meeting on the ninth floor when the reports about the possible shooting came out.

Chairman Pat Davis said APD knew about the meeting so, when calls about a suspected shooter came in, Police Chief Gorden Eden called a staffer to warn them. The staff and councilors then gathered the 20 or 30 members of the public who were attending the meeting and ushered them into a safe space until officers escorted them out, Davis said.

Davis said the staff, which had plenty of practice with these types of scares, acted professionally and efficiently to keep the public safe and calm. Last December, City Hall was placed on lockdown after a man with a gun was seen banging on a locked door inside the building.

Both Davis and Tixier referenced the recent shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., saying these situations are in the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“People think and know that this type of shooting really can happen,” Davis said. “That’s what we were responding to today.”

Journal digital editor Robert Browman contributed to this report.