A midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy was shot in the arm by a law enforcement officer Thursday evening during a campus lockdown triggered by anonymous online threats from a recently expelled student, according to a U.S. Navy official and a source familiar with the matter, as first reported by NBC News
The incident unfolded around 5:07 p.m. as Naval Support Activity Annapolis security and local police swept the grounds in response to the threats posted on social media, the Navy official said. The expelled student, at home at the time, spoofed an IP address to make the posts appear to originate from campus, the source said.
In the chaos, the midshipman mistook the responding officer for an active shooter and struck the officer in the head with a parade rifle, the source said. The officer then fired at the midshipman, who was hospitalized in stable condition after being airlifted from the scene.
Helicopter footage from Baltimore’s NBC affiliate, WBAL, showed the midshipman being wheeled on a stretcher to a waiting state police helicopter.
“One person was injured while Naval Security Forces were clearing a building. One person has been medevaced with injuries and is in stable condition,” Naval Support Activity Annapolis said in a statement early Friday, CNN reported.
The academy’s commandant addressed the episode in communications reviewed by CNN, attributing the midshipman’s actions to misinformation online suggesting a shooter could be posing as law enforcement. The commandant urged midshipmen to disregard such disinformation and noted that everyone else on campus was safe. The message also referenced a broader FBI investigation into multiple false active-shooter reports nationwide.
The Naval Academy received an all-clear later Thursday and closed to the public Friday, according to a subsequent statement.
The episode at Annapolis occurred amid a surge of unfounded threats targeting educational institutions. It followed the fatal shooting Wednesday of Charlie Kirk, a prominent leader and Donald Trump ally, during a speaking event at a Utah university, an attack that heightened national anxieties over political violence.
On Thursday, at least five historically Black colleges and universities in the South locked down or canceled classes after potential threats, though details on those reports remained unclear.