Heavily armed police conducted a floor-by-floor search of the student center at the University of Illinois Chicago on Friday afternoon after a report of a shooting inside the building.
Chicago police and University police responded to the Student Services Building, at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Racine Street, after reports of shots fired around 2:40 p.m.
Everyone was evacuated from that building and the neighboring Education, Performing Arts and Social Work building as police canvassed the area. Police initially reported no sign of gunfire.
"There is nothing they've turned up," University spokesman Mark Rosati said. "The building is secured and (Chicago) police and UIC police are going through floor by floor and room by room."
Rosati said the only confirmed gunfire occurred when one of UIC's responding campus officers accidentally discharged his gun into the ground.
The university posted a bulletin announcing the incident on its Web site, but did not activate a student text messaging system, Rosati said.
Nineteen-year-old sophomore Neilsen Little said he and others were at a tutoring session inside the building when he heard a noise. He said he thought someone dropped something.
Little said a woman then came into the office with a report of a possible shooting, and while he and others were getting ready to leave, police officers came and escorted them out.
The investigation wrapped up late Friday afternoon.
"We don’t know what the noise was that promoted the calls," Rosati said.
The 25,000-student UIC campus is part of the University of Illinois system.
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