Friday, November 17, 2017

UNCW would like to assuage any concerns about yesterday's alleged attempted abduction of a UNCW student near our campus. By the time University Police were notified of the alleged incident, hours after it was said to have occurred on Thursday morning, it was determined there was not an immediate or ongoing threat to campus safety, and therefore, according to federal regulations, a campus notification (of any type) was not required. However, as soon as the university was able to share the information University Police had secured via their investigation, in collaboration with WPD, a campus message was issued to make our students and employees aware of what had allegedly occurred. While text alert messages are reserved for immediate, ongoing threats (active shooters/attackers, tornadoes, evacuations, etc.) and are not otherwise required, we will continue to review, under our normal processes, whether text alerts should be issued if University Police are notified of an alleged incident and substantial social media or campus speculation develops, once information is verified. While we must remain cautious about not overutilizing the text alert communications tool so messages about immediate threats receive due attention, we always want to share appropriate safety warnings with our community as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued attention to your personal safety and to that of our community as a whole.