George Mason University Tweets — Then Takes Back — Shooter Alert

FAIRFAX, VA — George Mason University students received a frightening alert from school officials Tuesday morning, warning them about an active shooter on campus, and to take shelter and defend themselves if necessary. However, the university deleted the tweet and sent another five minutes later, stating the warning was “inadvertently sent.”

The scare comes the day before university freshmen are expected to move to the George Mason campus, NBC4 reported. The initial alert was sent out on the school’s official Twitter account only six minutes before the tweet was deleted and followed by another saying it was only a test. The school posted the tweet at 10:50 a.m.

The school also sent out an email at 10:45 a.m. The first sentence of the email described the emergency but was followed by another saying it was only a test.

George Mason’s safety director apologized for the false alarm and said the alert was inadvertently sent out by one of the university’s emergency notification system software vendors.