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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Scratch that "one dead body" post. Why would cops think it was a murder suicide when there were two dead people and no gun? That's pretty poor police work.
(Though I don't blame them for not shutting down the whole campus immediately)
"We're working on the premise of a murder-suicide, Sarge.
"What kind of gun was used?"
"Ummm... not sure..."
"Where's the gun?"
"Umm.. not sure..."
I am reeling, as we all are, from the tragic events yesterday at Virginia Tech. The slaughter of students and faculty is simply beyond comprehension.
I am not a hovering, quarter-backing parent--at least, I don't think so. I let the college administrators at the schools my kids go to do their jobs. Perhaps blindly, I entrust them with my children's safety and well-being. Is theirs an easy job? Absolutely not. Even under the best of circumstances.
However, I have a growing sense of unease about the security on our college and university campuses, and today, the questions surrounding the response of senior administrators immediately following the Virginia Tech shootings grow ever louder. Campus security cannot be a ‘reactive’ process as in the past--something happens/ new measures are taken. Certainly in a post-9/11 and post-Columbine world, proactivity and worst case scenario planning must be the order of the day. Our campuses are easy targets, our kids are sitting ducks, and why, in a post 9/11 and post-Columbine world, are we are fearful of taking significant action unless and until something truly horrific happens?
Where was Viginia Tech's crisis plan? Why did it take more than an hour for the administration to send warning emails to students? And if, as an administrator in charge, you knew that a shooting had taken place in a dormitory would you really rely on email to immediately and urgently warn students? Rome burned while the senior administration wrestled with a press release.
My son was an NYU freshman on that bright September morning in 2001, stepping into his first college class when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. What did his professor do? Told those 18 year-olds to leave the building and run the 20-odd blocks back to their dormitories. I will never lose the image of these frightened kids fleeing down Broadway as lower Manhattan collapsed. What was NYU thinking?
I wish I knew.
I would suggest that the problem within a large university is that "not okay" kids aren't watched more carefully. In a college the size of VT, counselors might well take into their center any student, especially "foreign" ones, whether they live in USA or not, who a teacher has concerns about.
This guy lived on campus. He had no friends, so em say. Couldn't someone who gets a profile of a 'loner' & who writes violent stories should ideally have been plucked from his room and given psycholgical tests and/or counseling. Sounds like this boy was psychotic and I would hope that all Universities would have some relation to those students who have no relations.
Whether a lock down would have been possible or not, I would advocate that all Universities, however large, bring to the counseling dept. all students who seem 'out of place' or 'too alone' or who an English teacher knows is disturbed. In other words, by the time his time bomb went off, he ideally should have been noticed and either dismissed or sent for additional mental health treatment. By the time of the first killings, that was way too late for sane action against an insane kid.
All parents whose kids go to college reasonably expect that the 'loners' who speak to no one have lots of attention and even dismissal way before that breakdown. This strategy is to me far more important than lock downs over a killing, though that sounds reasonable also. These kids are without their parents, colleges ARE often debauched and the amount of 'hands off' administrators, professors and students is counter-productive and leads to such crazy things like suicide and homocide.
We need colleges to get involved with all students and have a handle on who is a 'question mark' kid.
And one of them was a lousy .22. I've fired Glock 9mms, and I've fired my father's Browning .22. Though the Glock is indeed lethal at close range, the .22 is more or less a joke. You would have to score a direct hit on the brain or the heart to kill somone with a .22.
And Glocks have tremendous kick. Even with a lot of practice they are not effective from distances of more than 20 feet or so, unless one is a professionally trained, Dead-Eye Dick. What I don't understand is, considering how close this guy had to be when he was shooting these people, why someone didn't throw something at him and/or try and tackle him?? Why did they behave like lambs to the slaughter? I'm not blaming them - no, not at ALL. They are innocent victims and no one should have to go around all day tensed and ready for combat.
But still....I'm hoping there are more stories of heroism besides that Holocaust survivor who barred the door while his students jumped out the windows. I hope it comes out that SOMEONE tried to stop this guy, somehow.
By your anecdote. A crisis response plan requires that someone (a) know that there is a crisis; (b) be capable of identifying the nature of the crisis; and (c) be sufficiently well-informed to give people a prudent plan of action for protecting themselves. If you don't know what people should do to protect themselves you could easily make the situation worse by simply instilling fear and panic or even, heaven forbid, putting them in a more dangerous position. By all reports, VT didn't know it had a crisis, and it's not clear what officials would have told students to do to remain safe even if they were worried that a crisis could arise -- that is, who students should be looking out for, and how to avoid him, when they didn't even have that information themselves. Since the shooter was among those who would have been unwittingly notified the authorities would have been giving him a road map on how to act.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
