HENNEPIN COUNTY, Minn. — Hennepin County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) confirmed Monday night's shelter-in-place alert was only supposed to go to a small area via a Wireless Emergency Alert, which targets cell phones. Instead, it was sent out as an Emergency Alert System, which resulted in the message being aired on most broadcast television stations, including KARE 11.
Robbinsdale Police Captain John Elder said his department was responding to a possible armed domestic situation. They were working with the Hennepin County Communications Division to tell people on the block to shelter in place.
"However, it was sent, unintentionally, to the entire Hennepin County," a press release from Elder said.
On Tuesday, HCSO confirmed via statement that it was "human error" that caused the alert to go out to the entire county. Officials said the staff member who sent out the notification was certified to send out emergency alerts.
"HCSO plans to contact the software developer with a suggested fix to make this type of error less likely, and ECF leadership is already working with Hennepin County Emergency Management to update our standard operating procedures related to these alerts," a statement read.
Caleb Grunzke is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen. He has been trained and uses the same emergency systems used in Monday's alert. The NWS was not in any way involved in Monday's alert, but Grunzke said he has sympathy for the person who made the mistake.
"You want to keep people safe, and to get them the warning as quickly as possible," said Grunzke. "You just have to have some sympathy, but also remember your training and make sure it doesn't happen again, just kind of lessons learned."
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