Starkville firefighters are all too familiar with responding to calls to Cresswell Hall on the campus of Mississippi State University. Usually, they are false. Sunday morning, it was real, and a student was taken into police custody.
According to residents’ accounts, just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday, a Starkville Fire Department battalion chief arrived at the freshman male residence hall and quickly dispatched a crew of firefighters to the fourth floor of the building.
An anonymous employee of the university’s housing department, said that there was “some type of problem, probably a fire, in an electrical closet on the fourth floor.” The employee asked for his or her identity not to be revealed because housing department policy “discourages” its employees from speaking to the press.
“Everything is supposed to come out of Herbert (Hall),” the employee said. Herbert Hall houses the main office of Mississippi State’s housing department.
Residents report that a haze, most likely smoke from the fire, filled the fourth floor. The haze made breathing and seeing difficult. It also make the evacuation more urgent. It is unclear whether the building’s smoke detectors activated the fire alarm system or if a resident activated the system by using one of the pull stations on the floor. When the alarm sounded, most of the building’s resident evacuated quickly and without incident.
“It was amazing how fast the firefighters arrived and made their way through the building,” the employee said. “They were very thorough in their investigation of the scene.”
The housing department employee said that the building’s resident assistants had to force some students to leave the hall and that those students may face disciplinary action for their failure to evacuate immediately.
According to the employee “university police officers tried to interview residents on the fourth floor to find out what happened.”
“The officer took the names and identification numbers of students that lived on that floor,” the employee said. “One student gave the officer a false name and number the first time he saw (the officer). When he came back through, the officer recognized him and (the student) gave a different name and number. So, he was arrested for giving false information to an officer.”
The housing office and the police department did not offer any additional information about that arrest and what additional actions, if any, might be taken against the student.
Residents and the housing department employee said that the damage was contained to the electrical closet.
No information has been released as to the cause of the fire, or how much it will cost to repair the damage. The housing department employee said that there is still some question over who is responsible to pay for the damage.