CLICK BELOW to hear interview with Bay President LAURA COLEMAN
The Bay College West campus in Iron Mountain was locked down briefly Monday because of a police investigation in the area.
College President Laura Coleman tells the Radio Results Network that the college building was closed at 10:45 this morning on the first day of classes for Bay students.
“Iron Mountain Police asked us to lock down the building because there was an individual with a gun roaming around in the area,” Coleman told RRN News. “They weren’t at the college by any means, but they (police) didn’t know where (the suspect) was. So we went into our safety protocol.”
That meant that nobody was allowed in, nobody out, for about an hour.
“The first thing we did is we texted everyone, all students, all employees, on both campuses, so that they knew something was going on, and where it was,” Coleman said. “Then we sent out an E-Mail in case they hadn’t received the text, or hadn’t signed up for the text. Then we notified all of our television and radio partners so that they could announce that for all of the students coming in that the building was locked down.”
The college re-opened at 11:45.
“Thankfully, we weren’t in danger,” she said.
Coleman was happy with how things were handled.
“I’m very, very grateful that we had a plan in place, that we have practiced it, and we will do a de-brief on this, this week,” Coleman said. “
There is one thing that Coleman would like to see improved, however.
“We recently subscribed to RAVE, which is an alert system that’s going across the U.P., and unfortunately, although it’s live and working well in Delta County, it wasn’t live and working in Dickinson,” Coleman said. “We’re anxious to get that taken care of so that we can notify people with literally the push of a button.”
There have been reports of an incident involving gunshots and police elsewhere in Iron Mountain. The Michigan State Police referred us to the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Department for information, but the department says there is no press release at this time (1:00 CT).
