Are we prepared?
UNR police officers say department not prepared for crisis
The discussion about campus safety changed on April 16, 2007.
That was the day 32 students and faculty members were shot to death at Virginia Tech. Less than a year later five more students were shot and killed at Northern Illinois University.
As stories about school violence grab headlines across the nation, universities are reassessing their safety policies, searching for new ways to get urgent messages to students. It’s a challenge that University of Nevada, Reno officials are still grappling with – how many security measures should they take and at what cost?
To make matters more complicated, 10 UNRPD officers and four sergeants signed a document just days after the NIU slaying saying “UNRPD is not prepared for a major incident like Columbine or Virginia Tech” and that they have “no confidence” in UNR Police Chief Adam Garcia.
They said they are understaffed and ill-equipped to handle a situation like Virginia Tech – especially if it were to happen at night, said Ron Cuzze, president of the Nevada State Law Enforcement Association.
“Here’s the bottom line: they need enough man power to be the first responders for a crisis on campus,” Cuzze said.
UNRPD staffs a minimum of two officers during night shifts.
“I believe we are prepared, contrary to what some individuals have indicated,” Garcia said. “I don’t know … if most cities would be prepared for a massacre that you saw at Virginia Tech.”
UNRPD officers last went through “active shooter” training in 2005. Garcia said if an event like Virginia Tech were to occur on campus the police would engage the target.
“We no longer wait for the SWAT team to assemble to do their thing or wait for a squad of officers to arrive,” Garcia said. “If we were to have an active shooter today we’d grab whoever we had and we’d respond and do whatever we’d have to do.”
Garcia said other law enforcement officials from Reno Police and Sparks Police would be on campus within a matter of minutes.
“We don’t rely on ourselves,” he said. “We’re not an island.”
While UNR officials investigate the officers’ claims, the pressure to address campus security continues to build for the university.
“I think the potential to overreact to these things is significant yet we want to have a campus that is safe,” said Stephen Rock, chair of UNR’s faculty senate.
Communication is key
In the event of a shooting on campus, the strategy is simple: Send information about the situation to as many people on as many systems as possible, Garcia said.
“Because of the transient nature of people on campus we need to find multiple media to be able to alert people to what’s happening,” Garcia said.
Right now that means university officials would send e-mail alerts, update info monitors around campus and send automated messages to campus phones. The UNR Web site would be updated shortly after.
UNR officials said they are implementing and exploring new methods of communicating with students and faculty.
University officials now have the ability to send “reverse 911” calls through a Washoe County Regional Dispatch that can target phones in a specific area – including UNR.
The service can send an automated message to 12,000 phones in one hour. Steve Zink, UNR’s vice president of information technologies, said he is still exploring the possibility of including student cell phone numbers in that system.
“The work that is now left to be done is to populate the system with the appropriate phone numbers,” Garcia said. “The problem we run into this system is the transient nature of the student population.”
Blue light boxes should be installed by the end of the semester, Zink said. The boxes would not only serve as a way for students to call for help, but it would alert them of a problem too.
Zink said he is still exploring the possibility of a text-messaging service that would alert students in case of an emergency. It would cost about $1.50 per student per year.
Three weeks before the Virginia Tech massacre, less than 30 universities had signed up with the Virginia-based text-messaging alert service, “e2Campus.”
The company now boasts more than 500 university clients.
“It wasn’t until the Virginia Tech tragedy that the administrators realized that e-mail and Web sites aren’t reliable,” said Bryan Krum, spokesman for e2Campus. “Text messaging tends to work better during those crisis moments.
But there’s a catch, Zink said: Most students don’t sign up for the service at universities that offer it.
Only 39 percent of students at the more than 500 universities that use e2Campus sign up for the texting service, according to The Associated Press.
“We’ve looked into several (text message companies) and I don’t know if we’ve ruled them out,” Zink said.
Another perspective
Paul Kosel, the manager of campus security at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said his campus is probably ahead of the curve when it comes to communications systems.
He said the university of more than 13,000 has text messaging alert systems, intercom systems on every floor of every building and a paging system for every campus phone.
The only drawback: His force of 17 uniformed officers is unarmed.
“Everybody does it their own way,” Kosel said. “Everybody has their own problems.”
Zink said an intercom system in every building would be nearly impossible because of the age of some buildlings on campus. He estimated the cost to be in the “millions.”
The Joe Crowley Student Union and the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center have central intercom systems, he said.
He said the university might look into an outside announcement system, but “nothing is on the table right now.”
“That seems to be the conclusion,” Zink said. “There is no magic bullet – you just have various means of communicating with people.”
Currently, three methods are used to warn students of a shooter or other dangers on campus:
The Scenario
Someone comes onto campus with a deadly weapon and starts “rampage” shooting people and doesn’t stop until police arrive.
- Active shooter on campus - In most scenarios, no amount of safety measures or police can prevent a shooting on campus.
- Police arrive - After the police lock down the area or building and call for backup, the supervising officer will decide how to handle the situation and what to tell students.
- University sends alert to students via:
- Telephone
A newly approved “reverse 9-1-1” call is made to all the phones on campus alerting the receiver to potential danger or other hostile situations on campus. - Internet
Students receive announcements via UNR e-mail accounts and the UNR homepage changes to an emergency Web page alerting people to the problem or potential danger.
- Telephone
In the future, the school could use a system such as e2campus to warn students – who subscribe to the service – of a shooter or inform students of school closings and other events
- Active shooter on campus
- Police arrive
- Alert sent
Student subscribers receive multiple platform emergency messages.- Text message
Students will receive a text message on their cell phones, Blackberrys, wireless PDAs and text pagers. - Warning sirens
Warning sirens will flash and make noise around campus. - PA system
Speakers throughout campus announce threats from a central location. - Landlines
- Internet
RSS feeds and personal homepages
- Text message
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