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Originally Posted by phystech
We have an emergency siren on my campus - it was installed a few years ago when a tornado ripped through a few buildings. Now, this siren is mostly ignored when it goes off. We have card swipe security for doors but these doors are routinely either propped open by students or the students themselves open the doors for those who should not have access to the building. I mention this because I think it is way too early to rush to judgment on the VT campus officials and the timing of their issuing an alert to campus members. Give the facts a chance to come out and I think we'll find that their human side caused them to do the best they felt they could, given the circumstances.
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I want to reiterate what phytech wrote - he's right on the money... before my current job, I worked in a major west coasts campus police department and was a part of the university's emergency operations team. Response to emergency situations unfortunately doesn't happen quickly. It takes time to get the administrations crisis response team together and for them to formulate a plan.
After the first shooting, it no doubt took a while to investigate the crime and determine a proper response. Yes, campus police would have put out a description of the suspect to local law enforcement agencies but what would make everyone assume that the shooter would go across campus two hours later and kill 30 people? Frequently, when domestic violence results in the man killing the woman, he retreats from the scene and kills himself. Yes, on occasion, he will go and kill other family members or co-workers but law enforcement has to know who the suspect is to determine what action he might take. This requires investigation that takes time.
The term "lock down" keeps getting used. I heard the analogy that that the Virginia Tech campus is three times the size of Central Park in New York. Does anyone here think NYPD could "lock down" Central Park in two hours? If you answered "no", then how could campus and local police in a small community do something more difficult? People also say, "they could have canceled classes"... yes, they could have, but that also takes time to make that determination and contacting the thousands of instructors and tens of thousands of students adds even more time. Two hours may seem like an eternity when people have died but I can tell you from drills and exercises that I have been a part of (and we did several "active shooter" exercises during my three years with the campus police), that time flies by while you get approval up the chain of command to do the things that you need to do.
My final point is that despite all the training, exercises and drills, policies and procedures, quick thinking and decision making that apply to this situation, when this type of incident happens, mistakes will be made, decisions will be second guessed, but not one person in VT's administration ever imagined/expected/dreamed that this type of end result would have ever happened. And no doubt, each member of that crisis response team will have nightmares about what ultimately did happened. Each and every person on that campus is a victim. Let your thoughts and prayers go out to them, don't second guess them now.