IOWA CITY - Word of the Sueppel family murders spread across the Iowa City community quickly, largely due to a new warning system at the University of Iowa - one that police say might have caused more harm than good this time.

When university officials heard about the murders from police, they turned to the Hawk Alert system. With it, they warned 45,000 people with a call or text in about 20 minutes.

Branko Popovic, a university sophomore, says, "It was kind of stupid. It didn't tell you anything like to go to class of don't go to class. Just kind of useless, and it made people panic."

The first Hawk Alert, which also went out on the Web, said an active shooter was in the area. It gave students a description of the person at large and told them to call 911, if they saw him. But that's about it.

Iowa City Police Sgt. Troy Kelsay, says, "It caused a bottleneck. It caused switchboards to light up. It caused gridlock here at the police department. It became difficult to make the calls and receive the calls and dispatch officers."

Police say that message prompted hundreds of calls to their department from across the country from students, parents and staff worried about a possibly dangerous situation on campus. A second Hawk Alert told students that the campus was under no threat.

University freshman Caitlin Krater says, "I just got scared for no reason, but I appreciate that they sent out so many alerts."

Alerts with information, but no real direction. Students say, until that second message, they weren't sure if it was safe to go to class.

Lindsey Streit, another university sophomore, says, "It felt like, if there was an active shooter running around, we shouldn't be out and about."

Freshman Jon Hackbarth says, "I definitely think I appreciate it. With everything that's going on at other colleges like what happened at NIU, it's definitely necessary, I think."

Police agree that students need notification, but the system needs tweaking. The university began to realize this throughout the day. The final Hawk Alert told students to not call police unless they had specific information about the crime.

Kelsay says, "I'm very understanding where the university came from. They're kind of damned if they do and damned it they don't. If they don't release it and something ends up happening here on campus, they're going to be crucified."

The university says it could work better with the police for more detailed information before issuing a Hawk Alert. The Iowa City Public School system faced a similar situation when police lacked details on the crime. Administrators there actually locked down all 24 of the district's buildings before finding out there was no threat to schools.

Email Josh Hinkle at Josh.Hinkle@kcrg.com