[media-credit name=’BEN CLASSON/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Police have detained an alleged armed robber who fled into a University building on the south side of campus.
Two nearby residence halls, Smith and Ogg, were “locked down” for about two hours as police searched the UW Welcome Center and Administration Building, 21 N. Park St., for a “suspicious” man.
An emergency mass e-mail at 12:25 p.m. warned students and UW employees to stay away from the area but another e-mail one hour later said the incident was resolved.
Police have detained but not officially arrested the suspected robber, said Joel DeSpain, public information officer for the Madison Police Department. Police are working with employees at the Italian deli Fraboni’s, 822 Regent St., to identify whether the detained man is the same person who robbed the store.
According to DeSpain, the robber who displayed “some type of weapon” fled Fraboni’s on a bicycle at 11:15 a.m. while being chased by a store employee. The robber shed some clothing and moved into the UW Administration Building.
DeSpain said the building was cleared and them systematically searched floor by floor. A building employee told police that the detained man behaved suspiciously.
UWPD worked with city police throughout the incident to lock down the UW buildings, warn students through the mass e-mail system and find the suspect.
“It’s not something that directly affected the students,” UWPD Sgt. Clark Brunner said. “We just wanted to take precautions” to make sure everyone was safe. No one was reported injured in the incident.
Paul Evans, director of residence housing, said the two residence halls are no longer under a lock down because the suspect has been detained. “As far as we’ve been told, there’s no other thing that we should be doing,” he said.
Evans said resident hall employees will hear the concerns of students who want to talk about the incident and also work with police.