Helicopters, assault rifles, search dogs, but no notification.

The University Department of Emergency Management didn’t use the TXT-U service to inform students of the Stadium Village manhunt last Tuesday, leaving some wondering why.

Officials said a text message wasn’t sent out due to a lack of information about the suspect and because the incident didn’t represent a threat to the campus.

But some people took the matter more seriously, like English studies sophomore Angela Schloffer , who had her house searched by police with assault rifles drawn and a K-9 unit.

“If they’re searching your house, there must be a problem,” Schloffer said.

Terry Cook , director of Emergency Management at the University, said that a TXT-U message wasn’t sent to the 15,000 subscribed students because the University Police Department didn’t know whether the suspect, Grayson Lee Clevenger , was armed or not.

“I feel very strongly that we can’t overuse it or people will unsubscribe and people will ignore it,” he said.

Authorities failed to locate Clevenger after he had led them on a high-speed chase from Burnsville, Minn. to Hudson, Wis. to Minneapolis. They went door-to-door in Stadium Village with guns drawn searching for him.

TXT-U is usually activated by UMPD dispatch and can be called in by a police officer from the field, Dan Johnson-Powers , Emergency Management spokesman, said.

“TXT-U is for on campus, not next-to-campus events,” he said.

Once activated, the message service, run by Wireless Emergency Notification System , sends the text message to subscribers simultaneously, Johnson-Powers said.

The last TXT-U message was sent out when there was a chemical leak on the St. Paul campus and seven people were injured .