ainsley to get an update. julia, i m going to be candid with you and let you know my producer has been telling me various levels of information in my ear. we ll have something that could be reported and it has to be retracted because we don t have confirmation. what are you hearing about this ongoing search and the ability to get facts, you know, i guess justified and confirmed? that s why we have to be so careful in moments like these because it s more important to be accurate than to be first because think about all of the parents and families who know people on this campus, or in this community who want to make sure they re safe, so what we know at this point is exactly what you laid out, the suspect remains at large. there were reports that a suspect was in custody. there were even pictures of this suspect being arrested. but the latest we have and this is just two minutes ago was from the alert carolina system, that s what they sent out across the campus, saying that the suspect
we should, the police should, because that s what it could be. but it also could be, what i m saying is when it also could be things that happen in every community every day, and it may not be a target at the community. we have to wait and see. yeah, we have to wait and see for sure. stay with me, jim, rob, catherine as well, and of course julia ainsley. we have a report from a student about what he or she has experienced. we ll find out if it s a male or female. let s play that. i was sitting outside of one of the buildings over here, and then we got the alert on our phones, and then within three minutes, cops flooded the street everywhere. you could see people coming out with loaded weapons. just flooding the street, telling people to, you know, stay back. that s about all i really saw. i was there when that guy there was one guy that got handcuffed that fit the
of interest in the armed and dangerous person situation. they re not calling it a shooting at this point. there have been reports that there was at least one shot fired. as far as what police are calling this at this point, is that they have a suspect at large, a person of interest at large, rather, and an armed and dangerous person situation. they re telling everyone to keep their distance from this person, and to call 911. again, just a week after these students got back into the classrooms, alex. it s an extraordinary thing. you think about the campus there. it is really the size of a city. in fact, the population on that campus, 19,743 undergraduates. add to that graduate students. this lab area that you re referring to, julia, do we know in what quadrant of that campus it is, is it the north side, south side, because this is not all that far from raleigh. i m from raleigh, i spent a lot of time in unc on that campus. this appears to be closer to the south side of campus.
and fit the description. there s some false things going out that they had caught the subject, and then it was retracted back, so all of these things that the information flow gets very confusing. but the first one that went out was a text from the campus saying to take shelter, shut windows, close doors, and that went out fairly quick. which is good. those communications systems are getting better. absolutely. back to julia ainsley. i understand you have a comment from the governor. reporter: that s right. we saw a statement that came out from governor roy cooper. my office is in communication with law enforcement officials at unc chapel hill who are taking precautions to protect campus safety following today s shooting. this is a tragic way to start a new semester and the stay will provide any assistance necessary to support the unc community. he is calling this a shooting. previously police have called it an armed and dangerous person situation. but again, we have no evidence
i m going to ask you this question, but in the meantime, ask julia ainsley, our nbc reporter to see if she can dig in and find any stats on whether or not a campus like this, typical campus like this or this specific campus has metal detectors. i mean, so often we have heard about the conversations and tragically, the need to have these placed on our school campuses across this country, anywhere from kindergarten to university campuses, do we know if unc has anything like that around a laboratory area or any other campus buildings? is that a question to me? yes. you know, it s not really practical to have metal detectors in and around a large campus. we just had a shooting at michigan state university in the fall. they have nearly 600 buildings on nine plus square miles of land. unc of course isn t quite that big, i don t think they re quite that big, but they have so many buildings, and sending people through metal detectors, requires that you have security