I was already walking across campus to class on the morning of Apr. 17 when I got the text alert from DU Campus Safety: “DU is on a normal schedule today. Out of abundance of caution, all campus buildings are on lock out. You will need your DU ID card to access buildings.”

There was no precursor to this alert, and I had no reason to believe DU was not on a normal schedule. “Abundance of caution” was a vague and daunting phrase, and it was only when I arrived at class that I found out about the situation unfolding across Denver.

According to the Washington Post, 18-year-old Sol Pais from Surfside, Fla. traveled suddenly to Denver this weekend and, immediately upon her arrival, purchased a pump-action shotgun and ammunition. These actions, coupled with Pais’s supposed online and in-person “infatuation” with the Columbine shooting of 1999—which will recognize its 20 year anniversary this Saturday, Apr. 20—alerted law enforcement. Dean Phillips, head of the Denver office of the FBI, called the search for Pais a “massive manhunt” that warranted a “credible threat” to the city of Denver and its local schools.

In total, 16 districts enforced closures for the day of Apr. 17, including the Jefferson County district in which Columbine High School resides, but DU chose to remain open.

My professor explained the circumstances, offering a sobering lecture on active shooter preparedness. She told us how to make a plan. She told us how to break windows. She told us to run if we could, to be resourceful and fight back. She told the students of color in the room that if the police came, they would likely be suspects and targets despite even obvious innocence. At that moment, I could only wonder why we were all sitting in a classroom instead of safely at home.

I certainly understand the overwhelming interruptions and logistical issues that come with a university closure. It’s not convenient for anyone, and we see the problem arise at least once every winter when DU has to make cancellation calls for bad weather, attempting aimlessly to predict whether or not Colorado weather will throw us a light dusting of snow or a full-on bomb cyclone blizzard. That situation can put students, faculty and staff at risk, but not in the same way an active shooter would. That’s why I’m not sure why DU held out as if waiting for weather updates when an armed person making credible threats to Denver students went missing nearby.

Some professors cancelled class in the morning, but others did not; thus, some students had to consider whether they wanted to use one of their limited unexcused class absences and remain safely home, risking a grade decrease, or put themselves in an unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation by attending school as usual. No student should ever have to choose between academics and safety, no matter how unlikely the threat.

The campus went on lock out, but that’s never a fool-proof precaution. That doesn’t protect students walking between classes, hundreds walking the pathways at once. It protects neither a polite student holding the door for the person behind them, nor does it protect anyone whose student ID is lost, broken or not quickly accessible.

Add to that the fact that DU’s campus is currently riddled with construction, cutting off normal pathways and shortcuts that could lead students to safety more quickly. When it feels like different sidewalks are being blocked off by the day, students would be left with limited opportunities to escape in a worst-case scenario.

In the end, the threatening situation was resolved relatively quickly, and The New York Times confirmed Pais dead just hours after the lock out had been issued by DU.

The university did some things right, like implementing the lock out and supposedly increasing the presence of campus safety, according to a university news email sent to the whole community. However, DU took a risk by remaining open with an active threat occurring. It’s incredibly fortunate that nobody was harmed by the day’s events, but the anniversary of Columbine has yet to come, and the rate of school shootings continues to increase nationally. It would be nice to know that under any circumstances, even at the most vague threat, DU would put the safety of students first, but today may have proven otherwise.