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Originally Posted by Grits
There is a tremendous problem here with school officials allowing the first shootings to go 2 hours+ unreported to the student body allowing more students to be killed when the murderer moved to another building.
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I've seen this point mentioned in a couple of previous posts so I'll ask my questions using your above quote Grits just to frame my response:
How do you think VT could have better informed ALL of the VT students of the dorm shooting so that ALL VT students would have been aware of that situation?
I've also seen the term "lockdown" mentioned. How would a campus of over 100 buildings undergo a "lockdown"? Given the first tragic event, and not knowing how it was going to play into any future events, at what point would /should a total "lockdown" of the campus occurred?
Keep in mind that VT has apparently had a number of bomb threats issued recently. In light of those bomb threats, should the campus have been "locked down" and evacuated with each threat?
I work at a major University in the mid-Atlantic so this sad event really hits home for me. I work in just one building which has 4 floors so I am fully aware of how difficult it would be to completely lockdown just this one building, much less all buildings on a large campus. I also can see and understand why what could have been an isolated domestic event ( the original killing in the dorm) was not deemed sufficient reason to lockdown an entire campus. Given the daily occurances on and near my campus, we'd spend 30% of our time in lockdown if we shut our doors with each and every crime that occured nearby.
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 judgement 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.