One person was under arrest after the
lifted a security lockdown on Friday, April 10.
An initial alert just after 5:15 p.m. had notified the university community of “a violent incident occurring on campus. Avoid the campus.”
Two hours later, an online notification said the campus was “secure” and safe,” adding, “There is no danger – There is no danger.”
“The situation has ended and there is no threat to safety. There were no injuries. The lockdown is lifted. Normal activities may resume,” the online notice said. “Support resources are available for anyone affected.”
An Ottawa Police Service spokesperson confirmed in an email to the Citizen that no shooting had occurred on campus or the surrounding area. A news release from police said that, following an investigation and search, a man was a
rrested on Waller Street in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood just before 7 p.m.
“UOttawa has lifted its lockdown, and the incident is being cleared … We recognize the concern this incident caused for students, faculty, staff, and their loved ones,” read an OPS post on the social-media platform X.
First-year uOttawa student Etienne Hodgson was in the student lounge at Desmarais Hall on Laurier Avenue East with friends when the lockdown announcement was made.
“We waited for like an hour,” Hodgson said. “We decided to just leave because my friend had his car on campus.”
Hodgson said he and his friend did a drive around campus at about 6:20 p.m.
“Everyone was just walking normally,” Hodgson said. “I think I counted like three or four police cars.”
Sidney Lang was in Simard Hall on University Private when he saw the 5:18 p.m. alert on television in front of the classroom he was in.
“We just shut the door, turned the lights off and went and sat in the corner away from the windows and doors,” Lang said. “It was mostly silent. Not a whole lot of people talking. I think everyone was just hoping it would all be good.”
Lang said he wasn’t overly worried because he heard other students speculating that the danger wasn’t near their end of campus.
“We haven’t been told anything,” Lang said, while waiting for more details around 6:30 p.m.
“One of the professors called security and they said that they would call us when everything was clear and we’d be allowed to leave.”
Lang stayed in lockdown until it was lifted at 7:12 p.m. While waiting, he said, he saw other people walking around outside through the Simard Hall windows.
Tishawn Gordon said he and a group of four friends initially thought the perceived security threat “was just a joke,” but they were ushered into a safe room shortly after seeing another student sprint into a building.
“We weren’t sure what was happening. We were just getting screamed at to get in.”
Curtis Partridge, commander of operations for the Ottawa Paramedic Service, said paramedics were monitoring the alerts from the university, but no injuries were reported as of 6:15 p.m.
“The only information we have at the Paramedic Service is that an alert went out at (6:02 p.m.) from their internal messaging system about a lockdown. I have been monitoring our calls that are coming in through our 911 dispatch centre, and we have not received any calls for service thus far,” Partridge told the Ottawa Citizen.
Agnes Bezerra, a part-time uOttawa professor and a representative on the health and safety committee, said “erratic and unhinged” behaviour had been more common in downtown Ottawa since 2022.
Bezerra spent the lockdown trying to get information from other university staff to diffuse rumours being spread among students. “When we don’t know what’s happening, we imagine what’s happening,” she said.
Confederation Line LRT service continued through uOttawa Station during the lockdown, but OC Transpo said trains did not stop there during that period. Instead, shuttle buses were employed between Rideau and Lees stations, the neighbouring stops in either direction from the campus.
With files from Sophia Laporte and Isabelle Leahey Jay
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