A warning was issued by the University of Minnesota Police Department Thursday morning after they received a specific threat to "shoot persons" on the Twin Cities' campus.
Just after 1:00 p.m., University of Minnesota gave an "all clear", saying the Chippewa County Sheriff located the suspect and have him contained in their county. They added that the campus can return to normal operations.
For much of the day, law enforcement searched for Joseph Mark Rongstad who is described as 6 feet tall, 195 pounds, brown hair and hazel eyes. This information comes directly from the University of Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
The campus was open all day Thursday but all buildings were on UCard access only. Employees were also encouraged to work from home.
WCCO had learned authorities surrounded a home in Watson, Minnesota where they believe the man was is holed up.
The town has a population of about 200. WCCO Radio spoke to one of the residents who didn't want to be identified. She told WCCO that her kids are in school there, and was also in lockdown.
"I'm concerned about my kids and I'm concerned about the University of Minnesota too," says the woman. "Because that's the part that's unknown. Nobody knows anything. That's the part that sucks."
She also described what it looks like outside the man's home.
"There's three highway patrols, two towards the front of the house, and then there's one down at the opposite end of the street," she explained. "And then there's one of the sheriff's blocking the side roads too."
The threat originated on social media. A post on Facebook said " Here we go AMERICA, I'm heading out from Watson, MN to the U of M Minneapolis, MN to start killing kids this AM as Joseph Mark Rongstad."
Students are still on break, so there are very few on campus at this time, but there are many staff members and faculty still there. This is never an active shooter situation and there is no information to suggest that the person was anywhere near campus at any point during the day.