On Thursday, March 16, UWM Police made an off-campus arrest of a man who had been in the Golda Meir Library minutes before. While in the library, he removed a handgun from a small bag, loaded the handgun and left the library. A student witnessed this behavior and notified library staff, who called UWM Police. UWM Police arrived at the library within two minutes of the call. UWM Police used security cameras to track him to an off-campus location, where he was arrested without incident and then transferred to the Criminal Justice Facility. Today, he was charged by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
Your safety is our first and highest priority. Because the man was off campus by the time police were notified, and the incident was resolved within minutes of that notification, UWM did not issue a RAVE alert or a campuswide communication. On Friday morning, library leadership sent an email to library staff summarizing the incident and thanking them for their assistance.
Although this case ended without incident, we understand that some people are disappointed with how we communicated the details about this situation and the lack of a campuswide message. We want to be responsive to those concerns in the future.
Our campus deserves clear, honest and timely communication about issues impacting campus safety. Worries about gun violence are something we all live with every day. Students, faculty and staff must know they can trust UWM and UWM Police to keep everyone safe and informed. We will continue this conversation with the campus community in the coming weeks.