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Report of person with gun at Yale now believed to be a hoax

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (MyFoxBoston.com) -- New Haven and Yale University authorities lifted a "shelter in place" order after investigating an anonymous report about a person with a gun on the university's campus Monday morning.

The order was lifted for the entire campus at 4:40 p.m.

New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman said he was leaning towards thinking the incident was a hoax, according to FOXCT editor Thomas Carl.

"The New Haven police are going to find...and we're going to put handcuffs on the person who made that call," he said, according to a tweet from the Yale Daily News.

Yale University officials tweeted shortly after 11 a.m. Monday that there was a confirmed report of a person with a gun on or near Old Campus. Students were told to shelter in place until further notice, and that anyone off campus should stay away.

As of 3:30 p.m., Yale had lifted the shelter in place order for everywhere except the Old Campus section of the university.

The university was closed this week for Thanksgiving, according to a Yale spokesman, and most students have left campus before Monday morning.

New Haven police officer David Hartman announced in a press conference that the department received a call at about 9:30 a.m. Monday morning from a man who said his roommate was "on his way to Yale University to shoot people" The call was made from a pay phone around the 300-block of Columbus Avenue in New Haven.

The caller made the statement matter-of-factly, Hartman said, and he said subsequently, more than one person reported seeing "someone with a long gun." Hartman said there were "several" descriptions of the kind of clothing the suspect was wearing.

New Haven police said no suspected gunman was in custody and witnesses were being interviewed.

Some streets around the Old Campus area of Yale, close to downtown New Haven, have been closed. University, city, and state police officers, as well as SWAT teams were searching for the gunman. A task force from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was also called to the scene.

As of 1 p.m., the shelter in place order remained in place on campus, and Yale offered no additional information.

at 1:45 p.m., the university announced that "out of an abundance of caution, Police will be doing a room to room search starting with the residential college areas. When they knock on your door, a Yale Police Officer will slip their Yale ID under the door." Yale dorm rooms do not have peep holes, Hartman said.

Gateway Community College in New Haven announced a "precautionary lockdown" on its website at 11:50 a.m., "as a safety measure due to the situation at Yale."