(Photo courtesy of Josh Curtis from The Boston Globe) “The law enforcement officers present on South Campus.”
Jesse Nguyen
Connector Editor-in-Chief
On the first day of class, Sept. 3, 2025, at approximately 2:30 p.m., UMass Lowell Police received reports of a male walking behind Riverview Suites residence hall on South Campus brandishing a rifle. Police also became aware of a video shared on social media that quickly went viral that depicted the individual. University Police and Lowell Police were on scene within 2 minutes of the first call. Within minutes, a campus wide Shelter in Place order was issued as officers from UMass Lowell, the City of Lowell and other law enforcement partners attempted to locate the individual. The following day, Lowell Police confirmed that the individual was a juvenile and that they had confiscated the suspected weapon, which was determined to be a replica airsoft gun.
After the initial call on Sept. 3 and over the course of the next 30 – 45 minutes, approximately 100 officers, including officers from UMass Lowell, Lowell PD, State Police, FBI, ATF and NEMLEC responded to the scene to assist with the search of the area. UMass Lowell Police were also actively checking the over 1000 + security cameras on campus to locate the individual and ensure that he had not entered any campus buildings. At approximately 4:45 p.m. an evacuation of campus buildings commenced, which law enforcement partners also assisted in.
Many students who experienced the incident firsthand felt scared and confused. Juliana Erera, a junior medical lab science major, says “I didn’t know what was happening at first, but I saw on the snapchat story a video of the giant gun he was holding, and that’s when my heart kind of dropped.”
The initial text warning also created some confusion, with sophomore public health major Karma Melek saying, “I saw the run, hide, fight and it sounded crazy. Like fight against what?” For some students, class resumed as normal. Sophomore exercise science clinical major Madelynn Geoffroy says, “I was shaking but I wasn’t able to express my emotions because the professor was still teaching, and it was the first day and I didn’t want to give a bad impression.”
Following the evacuation, public reaction was mixed with relief and criticism. When students were asked about how the situation was handled during and after the fact, freshman biomedical engineer major Janelle Atuahene says, “I think they did the best they could, but getting more updates regularly would have helped. And I think giving out resources afterwards was a good idea too.” Junior political science major Sheeba Nabiryo says “When they told us we could all leave, I just see cops standing around and chatting and doing anything but escorting… it was like they all had kind of called it a day. We know now that there wasn’t a threat, but why not tell us?”
When asked about this delay in communication, Lt. Sullivan says “In any situation like this, we communicate timely information as quickly as possible. We don’t want people waiting or guessing any longer than necessary. At approximately 5:30 p.m., once we were confident that the individual in question was no longer in the area, the Shelter in Place was lifted.”
Following the incident, chancellor Julie Chen released a statement the following day which also garnered mixed reactions.
Freshman Sound Recording Technology major Chase Allen says, “How the chancellor responded with the email, I feel like she kind of dismissed the situation and in my opinion blew over the fact that we were all kind of terrified.” Nabiryo says “When people have been so critical, [about how the situation was handled] I think it was a bit tone deaf for her to take the moment to thank the police.”
Details about the juvenile are not being released at the time. Despite his juvenile status, students hope for justice, “I hope they pursue a big sentence with him because in my opinion, he committed an act of terrorism” Allen says. “He ruined our first day. He shut down a campus” Geoffroy says.
Despite the weapon being an airsoft replica, Evan Matukaitis, a junior health science major says, “it was good they treated it like the real thing because it definitely could have been.”
UMass Lowell police Lt. Sullivan advocates for active threat response training, which the UMass Lowell police regularly conduct. “Our campus community members are encouraged to take advantage of this…This is a big step towards increasing awareness and making for a better response to these types of incidents.”
While an undoubtedly scary incident, Lt. Sullivan says “UMass Lowell is a community. We have to look out for each other. It’s so important to call the UMass Lowell OR Lowell police if you see anything suspicious.”
