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'Malfunctioning water heater' sparked reports of active shooter at North Carolina high school

Topsail High School in Hampstead, as well as surrounding schools on the eastern side of Pender County, were put on lockdown after reports of an active shooter

Reports of an active shooter at the Topsail High School in Hampstead, North Carolina, were proven to be false after it emerged that a malfunctioning heater was the source of the gunfire-like sound. The police received reports of an active shooter within the premises at around 6:30 am on Friday morning, though an investigation would soon prove that it was just a false alarm.

WECT reported the comments of commissioner George Brown, who said that a piece of mechanical equipment that has been malfunctioning in the past few days and that it sounded like gunfire when it made noise. Pender County Emergency Director Tim Collins similarly said there was no active shooter and that he believed a malfunctioning water heater had caused the disturbance. He said the heater "sounded just like an AR-15 [semiautomatic rifle] going off."