Virginia Tech On Lockdown After Gunman Reportedly Seen Near Campus Dining Hall

BLACKSBURG, Va. (The Blaze/AP) -- Va. Tech officials say a gunman has been reported on campus. The campus is now in lockdown.

The university issued an alert on its website at 9:37 a.m. Thursday telling students and employees to stay inside and secure doors. The school also took to Twitter to announce the incident:

The alert says the gunman was reported near Dietrick Hall, a three-story dining facility. The dining hall is steps away from the dorm where the first shootings took place in the 2007 when Seung-Hui Cho, a student at the school, murdered 33 people (including himself).

Federal authorities fined the school in March after ruling that administrators violated campus safety law by waiting too long to notify staff and students about a potential threat after two students were shot to death April 16, 2007, in West Ambler Johnston Hall, a dorm near the dining facility.

The school says on its website that three juveniles attending a camp at the school reported seeing a man holding what may have been a handgun. They said it was covered by a cloth or covering of some sort, and that the man was walking in the direction of the volleyball courts.

Va. Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said that the three children were interviewed, and that the information they gave was deemed credible.

WSLS has more:

Officers responded immediately to the area but found no one matching the description.  Police have encountered no other witnesses reporting this individual or anything suspicious.  Law enforcement officers from VTPD, Blacksburg PD, Christiansburg, PD, and Montgomery County Sheriff's Office are patrolling the campus, continuing to look for the subject.

USA Today reports on a description of the man:

Lynn Davis, a spokesperson for the school, tells CNN the man is described as a white male, with light-brown hair, wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt. He is also wearing shorts and sandals, she says.

The AP reports that it is unclear when the lockdown will be lifted. University spokesman Larry Hincker said:

"That's the $64,000 question. You get this report of a sighting that someone might have had a weapon. Then you've got this one-square-mile campus, 150 major buildings with several million square feet of space to search."

This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.