UCF Evacuated: Students Forced to Vacate After Student Suicide, Assault Weapon, Explosives Found (Video)

By Jared Feldschreiber | Mar 18, 2013 02:56 PM EDT

A college student committed suicide in a dormitory at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and authorities found explosives and guns in the room early Monday morning, the Associated Press reported.

The discovery led to an evacuation of hundreds of students and cancellation of classes in the morning. University spokesman Grant Heston said campus operations resumed at around noon after the makeshift devices were taken away from the dorm, which remained closed through Monday afternoon.

"Obviously you never want somebody to commit suicide, but knowing what we know about what was in his room, we feel better at least no one else was hurt," Heston said to reporters.

When the fire alarm went off at the dormitory, university police were called in at around 12:20 a.m. A 911 call came in about a man with a gun.

"All of a sudden, I felt the crowd move a little faster," Antonio Whitehead a junior from Hollywood Florida said to the AP. "And a police officer with a machine gun or something told everyone to start moving a lot faster."

Whitehead headed outside where he said he saw a crowd already heading across the street from the dorm.

The arriving officers found a man dead inside a residence at the Tower 1 dorm from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the AP. The university spokesman indicated it was a student from the university.

Inside the room, police also found what they described as an assault weapon, a handgun and makeshift explosive devices.

Heston said the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the FBI are helping with the investigation, and the sheriff's bomb squad was examing the explosive devices.

According to Heston, student who killed himself had three roommates.

It was reported on Monday afternoon that the student had been planning an attack on the Orlando campus 

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