CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WNCN) — Following security threats at UNC Wilmington this week — including an incident that placed the campus on lockdown Thursday night — UNC-Chapel Hill officials said security was increasing.
The University of North Carolina’s flagship school said Friday that safety is a top concern.
“UNC is aware of the incident involving threats of armed gunmen at UNCW earlier this week as well as the social media dialogue suggesting similar individuals’ intent to visit UNC-Chapel Hill,” the school posted on social media Friday evening, adding a “threat assessment team” is monitoring the situation.
The UNC Wilmington campus was on lockdown Thursday night after a report of a gunman attacker. The report later turned out to be false.
For some UNC students, the past couple of days have been stressful, they told CBS 17 Saturday.
“I’m not going to lie, I’ve been kind of paranoid going out,” said one student, who only used the name Terra.
RELATED: UNC-Chapel Hill increases patrols after security threats at UNCW
But hearing that UNC Chapel Hill is ramping up security puts her at ease.
“That makes me happy,” Terra said.
Many UNC-Chapel Hill students say they have friends enrolled at UNC Wilmington and were getting updates from them as the lockdown took place on Thursday.
“One of my suitemates, her friends go to UNCW and so she was really worried about it, so I heard through her, which was really sad,” said a student who used the only name Harini.
The incident on UNC-Wilmington’s campus comes after tension when students painted over the university student spirt rock, covering an image of political activist Charlie Kirk who was shot and killed last week.
“I think that people just need to take a second to kind of like separate how we each view things because there is a lot of violence just because of opposing views and at the end of the day we are all human,” Terra said.
No threats towards UNC Chapel Hill have been found credible.
“UNC Police have, however, increased patrols on-campus out of an abundance of caution,” UNC said Friday. “And we encourage campus community members to sign up for Alert Carolina, our emergency notification system.”
