August 4, 2011 6:28 PM
Virginia Tech stands down from alert, on anxiety-filled day
By Barry Leibowitz
Image:
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/08...20x350.jpg
(CBS/AP) BLACKSBURG, Va. - It was a day of high anxiety on the campus of Virginia Tech University, which was on lock down for approximately five hours Thursday after three teenagers attending a summer camp said they saw a man holding what looked like a gun.
The university issued an alert on its website at 9:37 a.m. telling students and employees to stay inside and lock their doors, on the campus where a 2007 massacre left 33 people dead in one of the nation's deadliest mass shootings.
Text and phone messages were sent to more than 45,000 subscribers to the school's alert system, along with an email sent to the entire campus, said school spokesman Mark Owczarski. The school's outdoor sirens also sounded, he said.
The campus-wide alert was later lifted and students and staff were told to resume their normal activities, according to an email sent at 2:42 p.m. The email said there would be a large police presence on campus throughout the day.
Classes were canceled for the day. Police had received no other reports nor found anyone fitting the description the children gave. A composite sketch was posted on the school's website, and officers had scoured the campus for any sign of the possible gunman.
Several thousand students attending summer classes, as well as the school's 6,500 employees, were on campus when the alert was issued, said University spokesman Larry Hincker. Many of the school's 30,000 students are on summer break and will return for the fall semester that begins Aug. 22.
Maddie Potter, a 19-year-old rising sophomore from Virginia Beach, said she was working on a class project inside Burchard Hall when a friend received a text message from the school at 9:41 a.m. Soon after, staff locked the doors and turned off the lights.
Potter, an interior design major, said she was still holed up in a wood shop inside the building Thursday afternoon. She said things had calmed down since the alert went out.
"I was pretty anxious. We had family friends who were up here when the shooting took place in 2007, so it was kind of surreal," she said. "I had my phone with me and I called both my parents."
The campers had told police they saw the man quickly walking toward the volleyball courts, carrying what might have been a handgun covered by some type of cloth.
The children who made the report were visiting the campus as part of a summer academic program for middle schoolers in Washington, Richard Tagle, CEO of the group Higher Achievement, said in an emailed statement. All the students who were with the group are safe, he said.
An alert on the school's website said the gunman was reported near Dietrick Hall, a three-story dining facility steps away from the dorm where the first shootings took place in the 2007 rampage.
"We're in a new era. Obviously this campus experienced something pretty terrible four years ago ... regardless of what your intuition and your experience as a public safety officer tells you, you are really forced to issue an alert, and that's where we believe we are right now," Hincker said during a morning news conference.
S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security On Campus, a nonprofit organization that monitors how colleges react to emergencies, said it appeared Virginia Tech responded appropriately.
"You have to take all of the reports seriously because you cannot take the risk that there's something serious going on and you failed to act," Carter said. "The key is the community was informed so they were able to take steps to protect themselves."
Carter said having various forms of notification - sirens and message boards in addition to text messages and e-mails - are important in instances like Thursday's, when many on campus are there for summer camps or otherwise not registered to receive alerts individually.
Virginia Secretary of Public Safety Marla Decker said she was glad the children reported what they saw.
"We'd rather have a report come to us, investigate it and later in the day say there was nothing to it," she said.
Complete coverage of Virginia Tech on Crimesider:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-504083_162-5...ginia+Tech
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-2...04083.html
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CAMPUS CRIME, GUNS AND GUN LAWS
The lesson from VA Tech's false alarm
Posted by James Alan Fox, Crime and Punishment August 4, 2011 05:00 PM
The Virginia Tech campus police acted responsibly when it launched this campus-wide alert after receiving a phone tip from three teenagers attending a summer program:
"Person with a gun reported near Dietrick. Stay inside. Secure doors. Emergency personnel responding. Call 911 for help."
Even though the three young witnesses to a man carrying what seemed to be a handgun covered by some type of cloth may have been mistaken, it was wise for campus authorities to err on the side of caution. Moreover, the University had been criticized and recently fined -- unfairly so -- for failing to respond sufficiently to the double homicide on the early morning of April 16, 2007, that turned out to be but the first wave of far a far worse rampage to come later that morning.
With a mandate from the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, colleges are encouraged act promptly in the face of a credible threat to the safety and well-being of its students or employees. Of course, credibility is the in eyes of the beholder, but better safe than sorry. After several hours of follow-up investigation with no confirmation of danger, the campus police lifted the warning. Of course, by then classes had been cancelled and folks had gone home.
The secondary lesson to take away from this episode is that the national campaign to allow concealed weapons on campus is absolutely misguided. This grassroots movement, itself, poses a threat to the safety of students and staff.
Besides the fact that college students, even if duly licensed to carry, are relatively immature, and besides the fact that the flow of alcohol at campus parties adds an additional element of risk, how many times will a nervous observer report seeing a "man with a gun"? If concealed weapons are permitted, how should campus authorities respond to a report of what appeared to be a handgun covered with a cloth? How many times would campuses be closed down and classes interrupted by false alarms?
And suppose some angry or deranged student does indeed decide to turn the campus into his own war zone, how do the campus police tell this "bad guy" apart from all the "good guys" with their concealed weapons drawn defensively? After all, they all dress in the same "uniform": blue jeans and back pack.
So when it comes to the ongoing push to expand right to carry law onto college campuses, we should take the same approach as the Virginia Tech police did when faced with its latest scare. Err of the side of caution: With the exception of duly sworn law enforcement officials, keep guns off campus.
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