New York state's Utica College on lockdown after getting threats

Utica College in upstate New York ordered students to shelter in place on Monday after it received threats from a person saying he was armed with a weapon, school and police officials said.

Police had found“no substantiation to any reports of an active shooter or shots fired on campus” but were continuing to investigate, Utica’s police department said in a statement.

No gunfire or injuries have been reported, the school said.

Armed law enforcement officers were evacuating buildings and taking people on campus to a safe location, the college said.

The Tangerine, a student newspaper at the college, shared a photograph online of people hiding under desks.

The lockdown comes at a time of heightened tension in U.S. schools after a gunman with an assault-style rifle killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, one of the deadliest examples of school attacks that happen multiple times a year in the United States.

The college is in Utica, a small city close to Lake Ontario.

Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Editing by Jonathan Oatis