UNI

One Killed on Olive Street: UNI Alert Pushed Into Sleeping Dorms After College Hill Bar District Shooting

Saturday, November 11, 2017IAshootingemergency notificationmedium confidence

Confirmed Threat

Around 12:45 AM CST on Saturday, November 11, 2017, witnesses on the 2300 block of Olive Street — in the College Hill bar district adjacent to the University of Northern Iowa campus — reported multiple gunshots. Cedar Falls police found Alex Michael Bullerman, 18, of Waterloo shot in the abdomen; he later died at UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital. UNI pushed a UNI Alert overnight notifying students of the shooting; the case remains unsolved.

Alerts: 1
Response: min
Killed: 1
Injured: 1

Institution

University of Northern Iowa

Public Masters · IA

~9,100 studentsUNI Alert

Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

1 message in sequence

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 ALERTSMSEarly morning hours of November 11, 2017, after the 12:45 AM CST 911 calls

Approximate reconstructionReconstructed from Northern Iowan, KCRG, and Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reporting on the UNI Alert sent overnight131 chars

UNI Alert: Cedar Falls Police investigating shooting in 2300 block of Olive St on College Hill. One person injured. Avoid the area.

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

Pushed in the early-morning hours of November 11, 2017, while most students were asleep — students reported waking to text messages from parents who had seen the news before the UNI Alert reached them.

First UNI Alert in a wave of College Hill shootings that prompted UNI to publish an in-review series on gun violence near campus.

Verbatim text not preserved in archived public reporting; the wording here is reconstructed from contemporaneous summaries.

Context

Background

College Hill, the bar-and-restaurant district hugging UNI's southeast edge, has historically been the source of most gun-violence incidents around the Cedar Falls campus. The November 11, 2017 shooting on Olive Street killed Alex Michael Bullerman, an 18-year-old from Waterloo, who was not affiliated with UNI; a second victim, Dylan James Gehrke, also 18, made his way to a hospital by private vehicle about an hour later. Cedar Falls Public Safety described the shooting as gang-related, and the case remained unsolved nearly a decade later. UNI's overnight UNI Alert reached students whose parents had often already learned of the shooting through television news, illustrating the lag between off-campus violence and on-campus notification when neither victim has a UNI affiliation.

Analysis

Key Findings

An off-campus shooting with no UNI-affiliated victims still triggered a UNI Alert because of the College Hill location's proximity to residence halls.

Students reported the alert reached them after parents had already seen TV coverage, a recurring criticism of overnight alert timing in dormitory environments.

The case helped catalyze a Northern Iowan in-review series cataloging eight separate gun-violence incidents near campus between January 2017 and April 2021.

Outcome

Bullerman pronounced dead at the hospital; second victim Dylan James Gehrke, 18, arrived at hospital separately. Case remains unsolved as of 2026; Cedar Falls investigators believe the shooting was gang-related and that neither victim was affiliated with UNI.

Provenance

Sources

News
One dead, one injured in Cedar Falls shooting (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier)
wcfcourier.com
Source
Alex Michael Bullerman case summary (Iowa Cold Cases)
iowacoldcases.org
News
UPDATE: Police say shooting near UNI campus was gang related (KCRG)
kcrg.com
News
One Dead After Shooting Near UNI (WHO13)
who13.com
Source
Alex Michael Bullerman (CV Crime Stoppers)
cvcrimestop.com

Alert Sequence

Background

Key Findings

Sources

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