Campus Police Seize Handgun in Eagle Landing

On Monday night shortly after 10 p.m., University of Mary Washington police confiscated a handgun from a student on the third floor of Eagle Landing, after students who saw the weapon reported it to the campus police.

Doug Searcy, vice president of Student Affairs, said that the campus police determined there was no ongoing threat in the apartment building. The student in possession of the gun was identified and detained, and the weapon was removed immediately.

Searcy also said that in situations such as this, it is important to know and ask why the person had a weapon on campus, but he declined to comment on the specifics of this case. He would not identify the student.

The possession of the weapon violated the UMW Code of Conduct.

“No student may keep, use, possess, display, or carry any lethal or dangerous devices capable of casting a projectile, any martial arts weapons, any toy weapon resembling any real weapon, any swords, any illegal knives or knives with a blade longer than five inches, any explosives (including fireworks or sparklers) or any other such devices that could be used to threaten the health or safety of a person or property,” the Code of Conduct states, as listed in the Student Handbook.

“A weapon within the tight confines of a University campus can pose a potential hazard and jeopardize the safety and security of our community,” Searcy said.

The student who had the weapon was issued an administrative referral. According to Searcy, this means the student will face judicial charges, and an administrative hearing will result. However, there is no set penalty for the charge.

“There are no set minimums or maximums… but the University considers weapons on campus to be very serious issue,” Searcy said.

Since there was “no ongoing threat” to the community, according to Searcy, students and residents of Eagle Landing were not notified of the situation or of the firearm in the building.

However, when informed of the incident by the Bullet, this made third floor resident junior Jenna Randall apprehensive.

“I haven’t heard anything about that,” she said. “If there was someone with a handgun on my floor, I feel like that’s something the school should tell me about.”

Sophomore Dimitri Georgiadis said that he heard rumors about the incident from his roommate, but wasn’t really sure what the situation was.

“I thought it was odd that we didn’t get a campus crime alert,” Georgiadis said.

He said that if there was a credible threat, then the University should have sent out an alert, but he wasn’t sure of the situation.