But the incident sent shock waves through the lecture hall, political science and pre-law senior Anthony Stone said.

“I was in awe — it was like déjà vu of what happened at Virginia Tech,” he said. “What made it worse was a lot of the females around me were tearing up, saying it was like Virginia Tech.”

Between 3:35 and 3:40 p.m., the classroom door burst open, and two uniformed officers and one person in a suit entered the class, said the lecturer, political science professor Charles Ostrom. He was teaching Political Science 200, Intro to Political Science, which has 300 students enrolled.

“When the police came in, it was just really fast — we had no clue what this kid was being arrested for,” said Heather Allman, an interdisciplinary studies in social science senior who was in the class.

“I got nervous, because I immediately thought of Virginia Tech, and what could happen here,” Allman said. “I was just scared.”

When Ostrom asked what was happening in the classroom, an officer walked to the front of the room and informed him the student was reported to have a gun.

“The first thing I was thinking is something bad is going to happen — I was pretty shaken,” Ostrom said.

The student was sitting on the right side of the classroom, just a few rows ahead of political science senior Nic Clark.

“Everyone in the class was pretty speechless,” Clark said.

The professor kept the class for about 10 minutes after the disruption, then dismissed the students.

“I tried to work my own mind around what we were going to do,” Ostrom said.

The student arrived at class Wednesday with his grandfather. Ostrom initially thought he recognized the suspect’s grandfather as a man who had previously worked in the Department of Political Science, but later said he did not know him.

But the student who gave police the tip did the right thing, McGlothian-Taylor said.

“It could have easily been thought to be a gun, but it was not,” she said.

The student who was taken from the lecture room was detained by police in the Conrad Hall lobby for questioning. The incident only took a matter of minutes before the student was released, McGlothian-Taylor said.

“Once everything was explained to the individual, he understood the concern in terms of our response there,” she said.

Ostrom sent an e-mail to the class Wednesday evening, in which he said the incident was unfortunate, but that police responded properly.

“It’s just a reminder of what kind of a place we’re living in these days,” he said.