{"id":605017,"date":"2026-04-15T05:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/605017\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:29:22","slug":"mount-royal-university-accused-of-being-woefully-equipped-to-deal-with-campus-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/605017\/","title":{"rendered":"Mount Royal University accused of being \u2018woefully equipped\u2019 to deal with campus emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why wasn\u2019t there an emergency alert available on Mount Royal University\u2019s MRU app during Monday\u2019s \u201cshelter in place\u201d advisory<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a question being asked by staff and students at the university following the decision by Calgary police to issue the advisory after reports of a man being seen with a knife on campus.<\/p>\n

Calgary police issued the \u201cshelter in place\u201d advisory around 2:45 p.m. after they were able to confirm through CCTV that there was someone who walked onto campus with a knife.<\/p>\n

CPS estimated between 30 and 40 officers from all over the city responded to the call.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMRU student Ahmer Khan (right) said he saw a large number of officers carrying big guns but couldn\u2019t get any answers about what was going on.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just saw a bunch of cops running towards us and they were carrying large rifles and it was pretty scary, and we asked them what was going on, they didn\u2019t give us an answer,\u201d said MRU student Ahmer Khan. \u201cThe guns were like this big \u2014 it was like the size of the leg \u2014 it was crazy like I\u2019ve never seen anything like this these big guns.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tCalgary police estimate up to 40 officers responded to the call from all over the city.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Kyla Isidro was in the Arts building at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe received an email from MRU saying that there was a person and they described the person \u2014 and the details on what this person was wearing. I downloaded the MRU Now app, which informs students and staff about what\u2019s going on on campus. If there\u2019s any emergency going on, we\u2019re informed on the app, but we didn\u2019t receive any notifications,\u201d said Isidro.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMRU student Kyla Isidro said she had the MRU Now app on her phone, but didn\u2019t see any notification about what was going on.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The students who spoke to Global News also said there was no mention in the email that the person had a weapon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen we went out of the hallway, the Calgary Police Services were there and had told us we can leave the classroom, but we didn\u2019t receive any more clarifications other than that,\u201d added Isidro.<\/p>\n

The \u201cshelter in place\u201d advisory was lifted when police determined the person with the knife was an MRU employee who was working as a chef and had what appeared to be a chef\u2019s knife in his possession that he was carrying into work.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

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While police said, after the shelter in place advisory was lifted, that there was never a threat to public safety, concerns have been raised by about the university\u2019s response, with the staff and students who spoke to Global News asking why they didn\u2019t get any notification on the MRU app.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not on campus, however, the concern I have is that a lot of my colleagues who were on campus were the ones that were notifying one another through either text messages or social media,\u201d said Kelly Sundberg, a professor of criminology at MRU.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were an actual threat \u2014 God forbid \u2014 it demonstrated that Mount Royal University is woefully equipped to address and to respond, to notify individuals, to tell the community one, either don\u2019t come to campus or shelter in place or get off campus sort of thing. The communication was very poor,\u201d said Sundberg who added, \u201cI did check the app and it said nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tMRU criminology professor Kelly Sundberg said the incident showed that the university is \u201cwoefully equipped\u201d to deal with such threats.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Asked for a response to the concerns, MRU told Global News in an email, \u201cMRU did its best to respond, but face challenges relating to the complex nature of the incident and some of the tools used.\u201d<\/p>\n

The university claims it did send \u201cseveral messages\u201d through the MRU Now app as well as through email and social media.<\/p>\n

However, the statement said, \u201cMRU Now can go into \u201chibernation,\u201d or be off-loaded from devices, if not used regularly. We are asking all employees and students to take a moment to download MRU Now or check their notification settings to allow notifications from the app.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the email didn\u2019t provide any information on what university administration will be doing to address the concerns, other than asking people to update the app, it did say, \u201cwe continually review our internal processes and responses related to security incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sunberg said he hopes the incident is a wake-up call for university administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis just shows that security is not on the front of mind of leaders and it should be. If it were a mass casualty event, there would be liability. There\u2019s also security negligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the health and safety issue,\u201d said Sundberg. \u201cWe have over 15,000 people on that campus on a given day. We had a lot of young people. We have a lot of vulnerable people, and to have this demonstrated is nothing short of highly concerning and deserves overlook by the province.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe shelter in place advisory was lifted around 5 p.m. on Monday after police determined the suspect with a knife was a chef who worked for the university.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The shelter in place advisory was lifted around 5 p.m. on Monday, just over two hours after it was issued.<\/p>\n

However, the investigation continues and police say the person suspect, who was eventually determined to have the knife in their possession, could face mischief and weapons charges.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why wasn\u2019t there an emergency alert available on Mount Royal University\u2019s MRU app during Monday\u2019s \u201cshelter in place\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,2169,198803,44,154544],"class_list":{"0":"post-605017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-mount-royal-university","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-shelter-in-place"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}