One of the unfortunate realities in this day and age is the shelter in place order on college campuses when they are reports of a shooter or a criminal. That happened Thursday night at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and it caught two ESPN’ers on campus. There was a report of a suspect inside one of the UMass dorms involved in an armed assault and the university Twitter account quickly went into action reporting on the situation:

Jemele Hill and Howard Bryant were taking part in a UMass journalism class taught by ESPN enterprise editor Jena Janovy when they heard about the order and they quickly went onto their Twitter accounts to ask what was going on and to inform their followers about what was going on:

Both Hill and Bryant inside their classroom for about an hour and a half when the shelter in place order was lifted:

There were reports of two suspects on campus, however, it appears that they both left the area and police are still looking for them. More information is expected to be released by UMass later in the day.

It’s always a nervous situation when a shelter in place order is given and people expect the  worst. Luckily, the incident did not amount to a shooting, but not knowing made for a scary situation on Thursday night at the Unversity of Massachusetts.

[MassLive]

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.