String of gun-related incidents, scares rattle US

Americans' simmering fears of random mass shootings boiled over in three incidents Monday, including a lockdown at a Connecticut university sparked by what was allegedly a student Halloween costume, a suicide-by-firearm at a New Jersey shopping mall and an alleged break-in by BB-gun toting teens at a Colorado middle school.  

Law enforcement authorities kept Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in New Britain, Conn., under lockdown for three hours Monday afternoon as SWAT teams combed the campus after reports of someone wielding a sword and a firearm.

The familiar ritual of distraught families converging on a school unfolded as students huddled inside classrooms and barricaded doors.

"I have a son, Jeremiah Roman, he's a senior here," CCSU parent Anibal Roman who went to the school Monday afternoon, told the Connecticut Post.

"He called me and he said 'Dad, there's something going on — we have to stay inside and there's a possible shooter.' So my wife and I and my daughter rushed up here. Any concerned parent would have done the same."

From pictures released by the school, which reopened Tuesday, the suspicious character appeared to be wearing army fatigues and a black mask with a sword on his back.

The person who authorities were searching for turned out to be CCSU senior, David Kyem, 21, who was allegedly carrying a sword and wearing a mask, according to The Associated Press. Kyem was arrested and charged with breach of peace. The school said he is the son of a geography teacher at the school. 

The young man's father said his son had attended a party at the University of Connecticut for three days without a change of clothes and returned to campus Monday still wearing his costume.

"He made a stupid mistake," Peter Kyem said Tuesday.

"I don't blame the police for what they did. They did what they had to do," he said.

CCSU police chief Chris Cervoni explained why authorities detained and charged David Kyem.

"It wasn't a prank because there was concern, there was alarm," Cervoni said, according to Reuters.

Police didn't say whether Kyem even understood the panic authorities and others at the school say he caused.

"David walks to a different drum," Cole Hiney, an acquantaince of Kyem, told the Post. "He's a nice guy, but he's really into fitness and has snake-bite piercings. Always with his headphones on."

Later Monday, at a shopping mall in northern New Jersey, another man spurred the fear of a mass shooting when he walked into the Garden State Plaza shopping mall in Paramus with a firearm.

Authorities said 20-year-old Richard Shoop entered the mall, fired several rounds into the air at about 9:30 p.m., then walked hundreds of yards to a secluded area of the mall and fatally shot himself. Police discovered his body around 3:00 a.m. Tuesday morning.

As had happened earlier in the day in Connecticut, SWAT teams, searching for an "active shooter" paced through the mall looking for the gun-wielding man. 

Detective Rachel Morgan of the Paramus Police Department told the AP that several hundred officers responded to the shooting. 

Shoop, of Teaneck, had had problems with drugs and had left a vague letter, possibly a suicide note, with his family, said Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli. 

"We do not believe he came with the intent to harm anyone," Paramus Mayor Richard LaBarbiera told reporters, according to The Star-Ledger.

"He went out of his way to avoid contact with other people."

After she heard the shots, mall worker Danielle Oates hid in a bathroom with several others during the incident for two-and-a-half hours.

"I've never heard anything like that," Oates said of the gunfire.

Another scare, on Monday night in Denver, happened as events unfolded in the New Jersey mall. A SWAT team and a bomb squad responded to reports of two armed men at a middle school.

Police say the two individuals turned out to be juveniles, armed with "assault rifle style" BB guns and backpacks with items they had pilfered from the school, the Denver Post reported.

Authorities arrested the two after a search of the school.

The three incidents come after mistaken reports of gunfire at Princeton University caused a scare on Oct. 8, the Star-Ledger reported. The scares also come a little over a month before the one-year anniversary of the shooting death of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

On Tuesday, CCSU president Jack Miller said that university officials did not overreact to the threat.

"As further information unfolds from yesterday's campus emergency incident, two observations have become clear to me about the world in which we now live," Miller said.

"First, you can never be too vigilant nor react too strongly to the threat of violence. All potential threats must be taken very seriously, and the response must be a reaction to worst-case scenarios."

Second, as an educational institution we must continue to educate our students and ourselves about the perception of threat. Behavior that causes widespread fear among our students and staff cannot and will not be tolerated."

As for David Kyem, school officials say a decision will be made on whether he can return to school after the completion of police and school reviews of the incident. 

With The Associated Press