Records in BB-gun scare at UCF dorm conflict with police details

On Friday night, University of Central Florida officials said police responded to a student housing complex after receiving a report about a man entering the building carrying a gun on his waistband.

Its alert system set off a panic after it sent a vague warning to seek shelter and to stay away from doors and windows, an alert for which the UCF Police Department has since apologized.

But newly released records from the incident, including a police report and body cam footage, revealed the person who sparked the scare was not someone who entered the building with a gun on his waistband. He was instead a resident of a second-floor apartment whose neighbor who had seen the gun after knocking on the young man’s door.

The weapon was later found to be a BB gun.

The documents and videos, which were released Monday, revealed the discrepancy which had not since been corrected in UCF’s social media updates nor in police Chief Carl Metzger’s comments to reporters.

According to the police report, the subject — a UCF student who the Orlando Sentinel is not naming since he wasn’t charged with a crime — was seen carrying the gun in his waistband by a neighbor who knocked on his door to get him to turn his music down. He told police he saw the gun when the student turned around to keep the apartment door propped open. The neighbor said the student agreed to turn down the music.

Police later found the gun in the student’s room, the report said. He told police he was in the apartment with his girlfriend having a few drinks when his neighbor showed up, and they both went to bed after he left. No other weapons were found in the room. Body camera videos of the incident show the student emerged from the apartment with his hands up and obeyed police officers’ orders as they handcuffed The student could face disciplinary sanctions after he was referred to the university’s Office of Student Conduct for violating UCF’s ban on possessing weapons on university property, a policy which includes BB guns.

The incorrect information about what had prompted the alert was repeated by Metzger at a press conference that night.

“This evening, we received a call from a witness who saw a subject enter Tower 1, one of our dormitories, with what they thought was a firearm, and that firearm was tucked into his waistband. That subject was seen going into a dorm room on the second floor of Tower 1,” he said.

Police spokeswoman Courtney Gilmartin did not respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy Monday. him and his girlfriend.