Pope Leo University experienced a false report of a shooter on campus, which the university’s president described as a “cruel hoax.”
Reverend Peter M Donohue clarified in an email that there was no active shooter situation, no injuries, and no guns found on the premises.
Students and residents in the vicinity have been advised to remain sheltered in place.
This occurred just hours after a similar active-shooter alert was issued at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which prompted a campus lockdown.
Police later confirmed that there was “no evidence of a threat.”
Authorities suspect that the Tennessee incident might be an act of swatting, according to information from a law enforcement source to CNN.
Villanova is a private Catholic university in the suburbs of Philadelphia and is the alma mater of Pope Leo XIV.
