JERSEY CITY -- A lockdown at St. Peter's College was lifted on Wednesday after a threatening note prompted police to search the campus, officials said.

The school went into lockdown at around 10:40 a.m. after a handwritten message was found taped to a wall in a campus building.

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"We wanted to make sure that everyone was safe and that's why we're taking all of these precautions," said a Jersey City officer.

The note was found in McDermott Hall, a 47,142 square foot, three-story building that houses classrooms and the offices of the president, the provost and the deans, according to the St. Peter's College Web site.



Police used K-9 units to check St. Peter's campus for explosives and students who live on campus were brought to a nearby gym to have their bags checked, officials said. Commuter students were being sent home, according to a posting on the college's Web site.

Nancy Class, who works in the area, was waiting for her daughter on a sidewalk shortly after noon. Class said she received a call from her daughter, Carmen, a freshman at the school, shortly after 10:30 a.m.

"She said, 'Mom, I'm scared, come get me,"' Class said. "Your heart just stops when you get that call. You want to go running to make sure they're safe."

Class said her daughter told her students were notified about the threat by text messages from the school.

Carmen Class said that some students started to panic when they were told they couldn't leave the building.

"Some people started screaming," she said. "I was thinking, 'What's happening? Is this a rumor or is this real?' I felt safer after the police came."

Raisa Hernandez said her daughter Vanessa, a freshman, called her and said she was in class when students received a text message telling them to stay inside and get on the floor.

The lockdown is the second at a New Jersey college this month. Seton Hall University in South Orange was locked down Feb. 11 after a student's ex-boyfriend shot himself in the stomach.

Saint Peter's College, with an enrollment of approximately 3,000 full-time and part-time students, has an 18-acre main campus in Jersey City, a branch campus for adult learning in Englewood Cliffs, and several off-site locations.