Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

According to a “Code Maroon” Alert Issued by Texas A&M.

No reports of shots fired or such. My guess is it’s a false alarm or over-reaction, but I’ll update should it prove otherwise.

Update: As Karl Rehn noted in email “It is A&M and the week before deer season.” No indication thus far it’s anything other than a false alarm.

Update 2: The Houston Chronicle is reporting the following information about the suspect:

• white male
• wearing olive or green shirt and shorts
• wearing back pack
• carrying an AK-47

(Sigh) It’s always an AK-47 in early reports, isn’t it? Just because it happened to be the case for Colton Tooley’s suicide doesn’t mean its any less likely to be wrong for the next set of early reports.

Update 3: I can see why they might be a little touchy: Former President George H. W. Bush, as well as former First Ladies Barbara Bush and Laura Bush, are at A&M tonight to open a new exhibition at the George Bush Presidential Library. That was supposed to start at 5 PM, but I can well believe it might be delayed. Of course, the bus driver who spotted the “armed subject” might have seen a Secret Service agent. Then again, if the above description is correct (a big if), that’s pretty unlikely; you don’t often see secret service agents wear shorts in the line of duty (at least when they’re not out exercising with the person they’re protecting).

Update 4: KBTX updates on the story.

I would provide a link to the Bryan/College Station Eagle update page, but there’s considerably less information there than here. Evidently they couldn’t find any time out from the vital work of endorsing Democrats to actually assign someone to cover the story.

Update 5: Seeing tweets that the “armed subject” was just a Corps of Cadets (that’s ROTC for those of you who don’t speak Aggie) member carrying his rifle to practice. Just how long has that bus driver been working at A&M? Did he not notice that they have a wee bit of military tradition there? (If true, this would also make the AK-47 bit especially absurd, since I imagine they practice drilling with rifles a lot closer to an M1 Garand.)

Update 6: “All Clear. Person with replica weapon identified. No danger. Resume normal activity. 5:34”