FAIRFIELD POLICE Officer Mark Fracassini told NBC News that police got a call at 4:05 p.m. ET saying a male ex-student was believed to have an explosive device in an upstairs classroom at Canisius Hall in the center of the university campus.
The campus center was evacuated while city and university police set up a staging area to try to negotiate with the man, police said. Fracassini would not say how many hostages the man, who had made no demands, was holding. NBC affiliate WNBC-TV in New York quoted a school spokeswoman as saying he was holding 15 students and a professor after releasing five women.
No injuries had been reported at the private Jesuit school of about 5,000 students in southwestern Connecticut, about 20 miles from the New York border. In addition to classrooms, Canisius Hall houses administrative offices, a language center and the International Studies and the Women?s Studies Center.
