Albuquerque City Hall in brief lockdown after 'disturbance'

By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) - City hall in Albuquerque, New Mexico was placed on lockdown for about an hour on Friday after reports a man with a handgun caused a "disturbance" there, law enforcement officials said.

The lockdown was lifted after surveillance cameras captured the man leaving the building, the Albuquerque Police Department said on Twitter.

Bernalillo County Sheriff's deputies were "dealing with the subject," the police department said in the tweet, without elaborating.

No shots were fired during the incident and there were no reports of injuries.

"At this time, this is NOT an active shooter. A subject was seen inside City Hall, armed with a gun, causing a disturbance inside," the police department tweeted at the time the lockdown was initiated at about 10:30 a.m. Mountain Standard Time (1:30 p.m. eastern).

The Albuquerque Journal newspaper, citing a police spokesman, reported that the suspect did not point the gun at anyone but that residents were asked to avoid the area. The newspaper posted photographs on its website of police stationed outside the building, guns drawn.

The Albuquerque Police Department tweeted that no arrests had been made "at this time."

The incident comes at a time of heightened vigilance for extremist attacks in the United States after a married couple opened fire at a county office center in San Bernardino, California, Dec. 2, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others.

The FBI said it is treating the mass shooting as an act of terrorism, citing the couple's declaration that they were acting on behalf of the militant group Islamic State, as well as a large cache of weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials seized in the investigation.

There was no immediate indication that the incident in Albuquerque was related to the San Bernardino shooting rampage or was connected to extremism.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Andrew Hay)