Denver officials tried to send a shelter-in-place alert to people within 2 blocks. It went citywide.

It was the alert heard around the Denver metro area. Saturday evening, Denver's Public Safety Department sent out an alert to cell phones across the city and beyond about a barricade and shelter-in-place near the University of Denver campus. 

It was even heard in Ball Arena and on the Denver Nuggets Altitude TV and radio broadcast.

The alert told people to go to the Denver Police Department's X account for more information. People did, and they were not happy.

Some were upset because they had to go to a social media page to see if they were in danger, others because they said they were miles away from the danger, and still got the alert — some as far as Aurora and Lakewood. CBS News Colorado verified that some people received the alert as far as 8 miles from the location of the incident.

Samuella, who asked that her last name not be used, is from Denver but says she wasn't anywhere near the shelter-in-place. She wondered why she was getting the alert.

"It seemed like it was quite a distance. I ended up putting it in my maps, my Google maps, and I was nowhere close to it," she said.

The Denver Public Safety Department — which oversees DPD, the Denver Fire Department, the Denver Sheriff Department, and other agencies — later said on X that the alert was sent to a "broader area than intended" and that residents outside of a two-block radius from the barricade should disregard it.

But others like Samuella say it wasn't a big deal and they're glad Denver agencies are keeping people alert.

"I think it was pretty good that I got it. In case I was traveling that direction that night, I would have done a U-turn. I turned the other way, so I didn't mind," said Samuella.

Still, many on the website were upset that they got the alert. The initial tweet has over 130 replies from people, many of which expressed anger and frustration.

The emergency alert, which sounded an alarm from cell phones — even those with ringtones muted — just before 8 p.m. Some phones show the alert as having come through at 7:57 p.m. or 7:58 p.m.

The Department of Public Safety first tweeted about the alert at 8:40 p.m., prompting some people to question why it took the agency so long to follow up.

"Absolutely unacceptable to send out an emergency alert that explicitly points to a login-only social platform for more info, and then provide no further info for 45 minutes on said platform. The incompetence would be comical if it didn't concern people's safety," one reply read.

"I appreciate the verification but 44 minutes later is wild," another read.

Other comments expressed frustration with the format of the follow-up, since many people who received the alert might not have an X account, and even those who do, may have needed to sign in just to view the tweet.

One X user asked, "how are residents without twitter supposed to know this?"

"hey this would've been useful info like 40 minutes ago, especially if you're gonna advertise your X account as the way to get updates. (which you need to log in to see, btw, so, KIND OF a terrible primary means of communication)," another read.

There were countless more tweets directed at DPD tagging them outside of the department's reply thread asking for details.

At 8:41 p.m., the University of Denver's Department of Campus Safety tweeted, "DU Alerts: ALL CLEAR-ALL CLEAR. Stay clear of 2495 S Vine street due to ongoing police activity."  

Adding to people's possible confusion and anger, however, was the fact that the Denver Police Department only replied to the Public Safety Department's initial tweet, making details of the incident harder to find, and meaning some people, depending on their notification settings on the app, may not have been notified of the tweet, when they otherwise would have, had DPD posted a new, independent tweet.

That tweet came six minutes after the DU Campus Safety tweet, and said, "officers are in the 2400 block of S. Vine St., attempting to contact an individual that is barricaded in a residence in that block. There is a shelter-in-place for those living in the immediate surrounding area. Updates will be posted to this thread #Denver."

At 1:28 a.m. on Sunday, the shelter-in-place order was lifted after DPD said the suspect was in custody.

Sunday afternoon, Denver's Public Safety Department tweeted in a reply to its initial tweet, "We are actively reviewing why this alert was sent citywide rather than to the intended small area near the incident. We acknowledge the delay between the alert going out and social media update, and are working to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Later Sunday evening, Kelly Jacobs, director of communications and strategy for Denver's Department of Public Safety, said the alert told people to go to DPD's X account since it was a police matter, but said that DPD was still gathering information about the incident at the time the initial alert went out.

"As a general practice, DPD posts information on X about ongoing incidents when certain criteria apply and clarifying information is received. At the time the alert was sent to the community, the DPD communications office was working to gather more information about the incident," Jacobs said, in part, in an email to CBS Colorado. "Once important information was received about the incident, it was posted in a timely manner."

"We hope to have better information to share once we identify a root cause and have some time to dig into this a bit more, including if we need to change our processes or procedures to ensure that this doesn't happen again," she continued. "When DPD notifies Denver 9-1-1 that an alert needs to go out, Denver 9-1-1 uses an agreed upon template and inserts the information relevant to that incident into the template."