Campus Alert Archive
CC

An 18-Word Active-Shooter Alert Escapes a Training Session at Casper College

WYothertesthigh confidence
UnfoundedNo evidence of an actual threat was found. The institutional response is documented because the alert communication is identical to what would occur during a real incident.

On Thursday night, December 19, 2019, Casper College accidentally sent an active-shooter alert naming Liesinger Hall at 7:56 p.m. MST during a CC Alert training session. The first message told recipients to shelter in place or evacuate; about 18 minutes later the college sent a correction explaining the alert had been sent in error during a system training session.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
—
Injured
—
Institution
Casper College
Community College · WY
~4,000 studentsCC Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence · 2 verified verbatim

INITIAL ALERTFacebook
Verified verbatimOil City News, quoting the official Casper College CC Alert Facebook post106 chars
CC Alert: There's an Active Shooter at Liesinger Hall. Shelter in place or evacuate if it's safe to do so.
The message uses 'There's' rather than the more formal 'There is,' and offers a binary 'shelter in place or evacuate' instruction modeled on the federal Run-Hide-Fight framework.
The alert named a specific building, Liesinger Hall — a real Casper College facility — which made the erroneous message feel especially credible to recipients.
The verbatim text is quoted directly from Oil City News' reproduction of the college's Facebook post; it was sent at 7:56 p.m. MST during a CC Alert training session.
CORRECTIONFacebook+18 min
Verified verbatimOil City News, quoting the official Casper College CC Alert correction post148 chars
CC Alert: The previous message was sent in error and occurred during a training session for the CC Alert system. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
The correction came about 18 minutes after the false alert, naming the training session as the cause and apologizing — a direct, no-jargon retraction.
Calling the retraction itself a 'CC Alert' kept the institutional voice consistent so recipients would trust the correction as much as the original.
The verbatim text is quoted directly from Oil City News' reproduction of the college's Facebook correction post.
Context

Background

Casper College is a community college in Casper, Wyoming. On the evening of December 19, 2019, Oil City News reported that the college sent an active-shooter alert at 7:56 p.m. MST naming Liesinger Hall, then issued a correction explaining the message had been sent in error during a CC Alert training session. K2 Radio similarly reported there was no shooter and that the alert stemmed from a training session. The episode is a clean example of a recurring campus-notification failure: a drill or training message escaping into the live alert channel. Because the message named a specific real building, it carried more credibility than a generic test, raising the stakes of the rapid correction. Casper College documents its alerting infrastructure on its CC Alert page. The college had previously been cautious about its alert system after other regional scares, and the fast 18-minute correction limited the spread of unnecessary alarm.
Analysis

Key Findings

A training-session message escaped into Casper College's live CC Alert channel, broadcasting a false active-shooter warning that named a real building
The verbatim alert and its correction are both confirmed from a primary-source reproduction of the official Facebook posts
The college issued a plain-language correction about 18 minutes later, illustrating how a pre-drafted retraction limits the damage of a mis-sent drill
Outcome
There was no shooter. The college issued a correction confirming the alert was sent in error during a CC Alert training session and apologized for the inconvenience.
Provenance

Sources

  1. News
    Casper College: Report of active shooter was false alarm - Oil City News
    oilcity.news
  2. News
    False Alarm: No Shooter at Casper College - K2 Radio
    k2radio.com
  3. Official
    CC Alert - Casper College
    caspercollege.edu
Tags
false-alarmtraining-errornotification-errorwyomingcommunity-collegecasperactive-shooter-hoaxUnfounded
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion