UMass Student Attacked by Armed Men Inside Freshman Dorm

Photo by Ryan Scott on Flickr/Creative Commons

A UMass Amherst student was attacked by armed men inside a freshman dormitory building Thursday night, sending the campus into lockdown.

UMass Police Chief Tyrone Parham says two men, not believed to be students, entered Pierpont Hall around 5:15 p.m. and struck the victim on the head. No shots where fired, and the attack was “clearly not random,” the Daily Collegian reports.

An emergency horn was sounded on campus, and students were notified via to take shelter. The lockdown—the first of its kind at UMass Amherst—was lifted roughly an hour later. The victim, whose identity has not been released, was treated for a head laceration and released from Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton.

The two suspects remain at large. The first, for whom police have issued an arrest warrant, was described as a white man wearing a dark-colored shirt and gold chain. The other, a white man in a grey sweatshirt, is being investigated, police say. The two men were escorted into the dorm, which has 24-hour swipe card security systems, by a UMass student, according to surveillance footage.