URBANA, Illinois – University of Illinois Police have determined that there was no threat to campus safety Wednesday evening after responding to a false emergency report at Foellinger Auditorium, 709 S. Matthews Avenue, Urbana.

At 6:43 p.m., an individual called 911 and said he was in Foellinger Auditorium with guns and pipe bombs. Officers immediately sent an Illini-Alert, deployed additional officers to the scene and began to evacuate the area. The University of Illinois Police Department takes all reported threats seriously and uses all available resources to investigate.

Police thoroughly searched the building and did not find evidence of a credible threat. Specialists at the Real-Time Information Center monitored campus cameras, searched resources and found no evidence that the caller was local to the Champaign-Urbana area. The threat was determined to most likely be a fake report call placed from another location.

At 8:00 p.m., UIPD issued another Illini-Alert that said it was safe to resume normal activities. Out of an abundance of caution, police continued to monitor the area throughout the evening.

The false report is suspected to have been an instance of “swatting,” for which a person fabricates an emergency to provoke a heavy police response. Swatting is a national trend and, often, the person is not local to the community. The “swatting” investigation is ongoing.