Campus Alert Archive
MSU

Two Hours Inside Norm Asbjornson Hall: MSU Locks Down for a Disgruntled Employee 'Ready to Take Out Anyone'

MTworkplace violenceemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On July 11, 2019, Montana State University Police received a report at approximately 12:15 PM MDT that a soon-to-be-terminated MSU employee had told a family member he was 'ready to end it all' with his weapons loaded. MSU Alert issued a campus-wide shelter-in-place just before 1:00 PM. The man was located unarmed inside Norm Asbjornson Hall and taken into custody at approximately 2:10 PM; the all-clear followed at 2:15 PM.

Alerts
3
Response
40 min
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
Montana State University
Public R1 · MT
~16,800 studentsEverbridgeMSU Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Approximate reconstruction136 chars
MSU Alert: Officers are responding to a situation on the campus. Seek shelter inside a room with locking door. Close blinds and windows.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Sent approximately 40 minutes after the initial 12:15 PM MDT report — slower than peer institutions, consistent with the time taken to confirm the threat was credible rather than a domestic-only matter
The wording avoided naming an active shooter or weapons, which matched what police knew at that moment: a credible verbal threat to bring loaded guns to campus, but no shots fired and no firearm yet sighted on MSU grounds
MSU's Everbridge templates instruct recipients to lock doors and close blinds — a standard 'lockdown lite' posture distinct from the more aggressive 'Run-Hide-Fight' framing used during confirmed active shooter events
UPDATESMS
Approximate reconstruction163 chars
MSU Alert: Continue to shelter in place. Remain inside locked rooms with closed windows and blinds. Do not leave secured space until further instructions provided.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

Sent approximately 47 minutes after the first alert, during the search of Norm Asbjornson Hall and surrounding buildings
The 'do not leave secured space' language explicitly closed the door on summer-session foot traffic — important because July classes were in session and the suspect had not yet been visually located
MSU's updates intentionally repeated the action instructions verbatim rather than introducing new content, which reduces cognitive load during a long shelter
ALL CLEARSMS
Verified verbatimBozeman Daily Chronicle reporting on the MSU Alert all-clear, posted at 2:16 PM MDT128 chars
This is a message from Montana State University Police. ALL CLEAR. The situation is all clear. You may resume normal activities.
Sent six minutes after the suspect was taken into custody inside Norm Asbjornson Hall at approximately 2:10 PM MDT
The double 'ALL CLEAR / The situation is all clear' construction is a redundancy hedge that MSU uses to prevent the message from being parsed as a partial lift
Resume normal activities is more permissive than peer all-clears that typically say 'resume normal operations' — a small choice that flagged this as a community-wide release, not an employee-only return-to-work
Context

Background

The case is a textbook example of a Clery 'emergency notification' triggered by a credible verbal threat rather than an observed weapon on campus. According to Bozeman Daily Chronicle and KPAX reporting, the employee — who was in the process of being terminated — told a family member he was 'ready to end it all' with his guns loaded and 'ready to take out anyone with him.' The family member relayed the threat to police, who corroborated it with the suspect's social-media posts and immediately pushed an MSU Alert shelter-in-place. Officers located the suspect inside Norm Asbjornson Hall, the engineering college's new 110,000-square-foot signature building (opened December 14, 2018 — roughly seven months before the incident), and arrested him without incident at approximately 2:10 PM MDT. MSU Police Chief Frank Parrish later told KTVQ that the man owned two shotguns and a rifle but was unarmed when taken into custody. He was transported for a mental-health evaluation rather than criminally charged. The incident illustrates how MSU's emergency-notification team handles the murky middle ground of threat assessment — when a person is credibly dangerous but has not yet committed a crime or been seen with a weapon.
Analysis

Key Findings

The 40-minute gap between the initial report (12:15 PM MDT) and the first alert (~12:55 PM MDT) reflects deliberate threat-verification rather than dispatch delay, but is long by peer-institution standards
MSU Alert templates use a softer 'shelter in place / close blinds' posture rather than active-shooter Run-Hide-Fight language when no weapon is confirmed on campus
The suspect was taken into custody inside MSU's flagship engineering building, Norm Asbjornson Hall, occupied at the time by summer-session classes and research staff
MSU declined to file criminal charges, instead routing the suspect to mental-health evaluation — a path that hinges on the absence of a possessed weapon at the moment of arrest
Outcome
The employee was taken into custody at approximately 2:10 PM MDT inside Norm Asbjornson Hall, the home of MSU's engineering college, and transported for a mental-health evaluation. He was never criminally charged. Police later confirmed he owned two shotguns and a rifle but had no firearms with him at the time of his arrest.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    Montana State employee arrested after threatening campus (Bozeman Daily Chronicle)
    bozemandailychronicle.com
  2. News
    Details emerge in MSU 'shelter-in-place' incident (KPAX)
    kpax.com
  3. News
    MSU police say man arrested during shelter-in-place threat 'ready to take out anyone with him' (KTVQ)
    ktvq.com
  4. News
    MSU Bozeman campus cleared after threat (NBC Montana)
    nbcmontana.com
  5. News
    MSU campus shelter in place order lifted, all clear (KTVH)
    ktvh.com
  6. News
    Updated: MSU Employee Who Caused Campus Lockdown To Be Evaluated (Montana Public Radio)
    mtpr.org
Tags
shelter-in-placeworkplace-violencecredible-threatnorm-asbjornson-hallmontana-statebozemanmontanasummer-sessionmental-health-hold
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion