University of Minnesota says campus now safe after shooting threat

Alex Derosier, Pioneer Press
Updated ·2 min read

University of Minnesota officials say their campus is no longer under threat after authorities located a western Minnesota man who reportedly announced his plans to shoot people on campus.

At 1 p.m. Thursday, the U said the campus resumed normal operations after the Chippewa County sheriff had located the man suspected of making the threats and “contained him in their county.”

University officials on Thursday morning sent out a text and email alert warning of the threat to “shoot persons” they say came from 41-year-old Joseph Mark Rongstad.

In a post to his Facebook business page, a person claiming to be Rongstad announced a plan to drive two and a half hours from Watson in west-central Minnesota to the U campus “to start killing kids.” In response to the threat, the U police department and other agencies had additional officers on campus, the alert said.

The spring semester, signaling the return of most students, is set to begin on Tuesday, Jan. 16, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

On Thursday, buildings were only accessible by keycard. Students and employees were urged to avoid campus.

According to the U, the Twin Cities campus remained open with normal operations. Updates and safety tips can be found at publicsafety.umn.edu/alerts.

The Chippewa County Sherriff’s Office said it “became aware of a social media post involving a threat to Sheriff’s Office staff and students of the University of Minnesota” on Thursday morning. Rongstad is the former mayor of Watson, Minnesota, and has an extensive history of trouble with the law, as well as mental health and substance issues, according to the West-Central Tribune.

He was convicted of a 2016 burglary where he broke into the then-mayor’s home as the mayor and his family slept. In 2021, he was convicted of driving a tractor into the Watson Lutheran Church, the newspaper reported.

Related Articles