News: Students and Faculty Shook Up Over Emergency Drill

lukem · #1 02-27-2008, 11:01 AM

Quote:

On Friday, an undercover campus officer barged into a classroom on Elizabeth State University to act out an emergency drill on the campus. He even held a gun to the professor's head. The officer carried a red plastic gun but according to the professor, he didn't have time to realize the gun was fake.

The school started sending out email alerts to students that signed up for the alerts stating there would be some type of drill on Friday but did not mention what type and any details of the drill. Shortly before the drill on Friday, the school sent out another alert stating there would be an armed intruder in Moore building but did not specify which classroom.

The problem is that only have half the campus signed up for these alerts. Most of the students in the classroom as well as the professor had no idea this was going on. According to Professor Jinbin Wang, everyone was scared and some students were prepared to jump out of the window.

When the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Anthony Brown was asked about the incident, he apologized for scaring or shocking everyone. He mentioned they sent out the email and text alerts but agreed that he knew only half of the campus had signed up for them. Then he added that they should also be relying on word of mouth to communicate these types of things.

I remember being in school and having fire drills. I'm pretty certain that most of the faculty knew about them when they happened. But to have someone barge into a classroom with a gun to act out one of these violent crimes as a drill is going a bit too far in my opinion. What if someone would have been carrying a concealed firearm? I know it is illegal to do so in North Carolina but what if? I bet they aren't planning any drill like these in Utah where it IS legal to carry concealed on campus.

What are your thoughts?

DrLewall · #2 02-27-2008, 11:16 AM

I agree, the faculty/staff should have been advised! Did someone stay up all night thinking on this one?

KimberRB · #3 02-27-2008, 11:34 AM

This is nuts! I bet the person that came up with this will be in hot water. And I agree what if someone would have had a gun. I just don’t want to think about it. An officer would have been shot and the crap about CC would start all over. THANK PEOPLE!

HK4U · #4 02-27-2008, 11:37 AM

Sounds like a good way to get someone hurt or killed.

Red Hat · #5 02-27-2008, 11:47 AM

What a bunch of educated idiots! How do you run a drill in a gun free zone? What was he going to do...hand out signs to clip on their shirt, "Dead", "Wounded" or "Heart Attack"! I guess this is the only time it was good to be a Gun Free Zone! It was also a good thing that no one was carrying anyway ignoring the GFZ.

kwo51 · #6 02-27-2008, 11:58 AM

Yeper lots of dirty underware. Lots of good thinking went into this.

mom of 3 angels · #7 02-27-2008, 12:41 PM

If it was a gun free zone, was the assailant using one of those blue dummy guns? Or one with an orange plug in the barrel?

As far as letting people know what's going on, relying on word of mouth is faulty logic anyway, but if that was their only means of getting the word out besides the email/text alerts then they needed to provide more time for the word to spread. We had a lockdown drill at our elementary school and I don't think they even brought in anybody to be the armed intruder, but it was advertised all over the place with lots of explanation of what would be happening for 2 weeks prior to the event. Granted ours was an elementary school and this happened in a college, but it's just as frightening if not more so for the college kids. They definitely needed a better notification system. Very good for whoever planned this that there were not students/faculty allowed to carry or they could have had more serious problems than students shaken up over the ordeal!

rlsmaritime · #8 02-27-2008, 01:00 PM

My reaction to this is really mixed but what it really comes down to is this:

Everytime there is an incident on a GFZ campus, two things seem to happen:

1) no one can get the administration to recognize that they have taken away the ability of individuals to protect themselves and to do away with the GFZ status of the grounds and buildings

2) the administration sets up some type of notification system to let folks know that something is amiss, and advises everyone about how to enroll in the system.

The result is predictable in that no one can carry a defensive item on capmpus and but only about half sign up for notifications....the latter because they expect that someone else will take care of them and that they will be spoon-fed any and all critical information.

It is unfortunate that some of them were "scared" but then, too bad. They were offered a means to have been informed of the drill but made a choice not to participate. The administration used the system , so who's fault is it that some people didn't get the word.

Better to be scared now than dead later. Hopefully, sign up for the notification system will be near 100% soon.