VPISU: campus security, high-tech gadgetry, finals stress... what's wrong with this picture?
For openners?
I've been on the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University campus.
It was a long time ago, and it was really wonderful experience.
Arguably, this college, and the week that I stayed with one of the professors from the school, (in the late seventies,) sculpted a lot of how I felt about going off to college in general, had a lot to do with faith and school, (they have a trememdous church on campus, very progressive, probably the epitome of a really excellent campus fellowship...)
And the place made a big dent in me, in terms of realizing that college could be really cool, and I'd one day want to go... (I was like, 15 or 16.)
My heart breaks for the community, as the entire town is just beautiful.
I'm reading the news though, (arguably,) from across the country, and I'm reading that
-a shooting took place very early in the morning at a dorm...
-the gunman leaves and goes across campus.
-the gunman then goes into a engineering building (VPISU is a major engineering school,)
-and proceeds to kill at least 30 more people, then himself.
-The police and other troops were called in, but it was way too late.
In addition?
There's at least twenty (plus,) people seriously injured, some of which were jumping out of a 4th story window to escape the guy...
Whole event has killed at least 30 plus with additional injured putting the total affected count well over 50, probably up to 60...
One guy.
But here's the hook.
The shootings?
Over two hours apart..
Initially the college had a shooting in a school dorm early in the morning...
The campus (major) shooting was 'mid morning' two hours later.
It was one gunman, two pistols and a lot of clips.
Nobody said anything officially from the college after the first attack, the school was not shut down, police didn't cordon off the campus
-there were a few Emails sent, but basically? There were no messages being broadcast across the student PA system, nothing being told to the faculty, Nothing...
Nothing.
By the time the messages were out that there had been early shootings?
The gunman had gone to another part of the school and begun eliminating other students at a hellish rate, and was completely unchallanged.
Basically they locked down the campus after he had begun, and the guy didn't do this in a split-second, either... He took his time.
Now, in the schools defence?
The campus IS for all intensive purposes the town.
Blacksburgh Va. is an extremely cool little college town, and the college dominates everything about it.
(It is truly a beautiful campus, lots of hills, the New River runs through it...)
But, outside of Downtown Princeton NJ, I don't recall a college more about a town and verse visa...
-the campus has thousands of acres...
But nobody said anything.
Further?
At any major university?
Everybody knows that during mid-terms and finals, stress is high, performace is at a peak, student physical and mental health is stretched waaaaaay thin.
(For example: at Cornell Universty, (Ithaca, NY)
--during finals and mid-terms there is an increase in security at area bridges (the town is built around gorges,)
--and it's specifically over students who are crashing and burning academically,
--who loose sight of things and opt to jump...
-They know to step up eyes on the campus at these times, and have done so for decades...
Engineering and Med Schools are High-Stress Schools.
(Surprise: so are Religious Schools as well, -they're just a lot smaller and are almost always private, so that they don't make it on the radar.)
Most other colleges and universities comprehend this, most police departments know when to sort of step up things...
What happened with VPISU?
You may be asking...
...dude, that's East Coast, that's Virginia... that's not out here...
But...
This is a college town, too... (though maybe there is more stress and pressure at a college like Berkely or CalPoly???) I dunno...
The same thing could happen, anywhere.
It just blows me away that a school that is so smart (one of the top polytechnics back east,,,)
-had no warning system in place, was declaring no emergencies, was not really warning anyone,
----AND----
-they had a shooting last fall on the campus, (a local prisoner had escaped and shot some folks...)
-So the concept of campus violence was not unheard of...
It's being called the worst mass shooting in a public place in US history... and it almost doubles the amount of affected people from the last attack in the late nineties... (last body count: low twenty's, this time? at least 30 to 33 dead, at least 20+ injured.)
-The whole time it's going on, students and faculty are picture-phoning each other footage of the shooting and aftermath (both of the initial shooting and the second one,) ---and the only thing officially sent out by the college was a hardly read Email that said '...be on the look out for anything 'suspicious.'
I would hope, (though I sincerely hope nothing like this were to take place anywhere else...)
That any other college, (even CSUF, Fres-Pac, or City) has something a bit more advanced and thorough in place as an S.O.P.
--especially during test-times in terms of handling student stress, distressing situaitons, dorm violence, campus security, -especially campus communication...
Again, my prayers go out to the families, victims, and survivors of those affected (and the family of the shooter.)
A lot of things went wrong here, and can't be made right, only healed with time.
slight update here..
For those of you who are following this story from different angles, (aside from the media hype...)
Checking out today's NewYorkTimes (online edition,)
-Recent articles have somebody up on the foodchain in NYC as saying that one of the bigger problems in NY is people driving down to states such as Va. where the gun laws are more lax, making purchases, and them winding up back in the Metro-Region. (Va. and NY aren't all that far apart, --(I want to say 5 to 6 hours, (if that,) and you don't hit major traffic around Phila, and DC.
-Further unveilings:
-The gunman, who had been on a lot of folk's radar and even had stalked two students as recently as a couple of years ago had a 'COURT ORDERED' judgement to undergo outpatient therapy.
-This was not voluntary, this was court ordered because he was considered to be an endangerment to himself.
On State and Federal Levels, you cannot purchase or own (legally,) a firearm if you have ever been declared by state or federal law to be an endangerment to yourself or anyone else.
-The problem that they're finding was: The State and the Fed have slightly different determinations as to what is 'and endangerment,' ---but reading and understanding the nature of the State-Fed law is quite clear.
-The guy (by virtue of the Judge's demand that he undergo psychiatric treatment for his mental state,) -disqualified him.
-So there was a major major drop in the link of communication.
Also of Note:
only 20 or 22 states even have compliance laws that require a psychiatric background check to purchase a firearm of any sort.
---So, even in a highly flawed system of communication regarding purchase of firearms, -it is less than half of the country that requires any real checking. (Most of the information on the forms to purchase a weapon are voluntary, and most have only a small waiting time for the 'paperwork to clear.' (The Paperwork Clearing means only checking for a criminal record.)
By contrast:
-If you go to apply for a credit card, or some sort of major purchase, (that requires a background check, fincancially,) your credit is known Nationally, (and actually, Internationally.)
-If you have a 'flawed,' driving record? That is on a State DataBase -and that is put on a National Data Base as well, (regardless of whether you have parking violations, lapse of insurance, out of date plates, lapsed regestration, ---and even if you've moved to another state clear across the country...
(...how do I know this? I have an excellent driving record of 25 years, yet there were old plates on two vehicles (one I no longer own, neither on the road,) that nearly nailed my drivers license in Ca, AND nailed it in NY, (I didn't even know there was a problem until my new State (CA.) contacted me... (It's all being sorted out, but it's a paperwork nightmare... ---and that's just plates on a junker and a car in restoration...)
So, those two areas at least: (financial, DMV,) can and will seriously change your life and are on national databases that anyone can check...
-Being mentally unfit to be anywhere near a firearm?
Often is not even checked thoroughly within a state, and rarely across statelines.
(And that's if you are looking to LEGALLY purchase a firearm.
If someone wants to purchase one 'out of the system,' (which is where most 'bad-guys,' get their guns, ---not a problem, it's just a matter of the right connection and the money in hand.)
Not cool.
it was a little more than a lockdown
...a contractor for NASA entered a workspace, shot and killed a fellow employee, and then ate his gun a few hours later..
The lockdown (employees kept in their designated work areas/buildings ) lasted for a few hours, and then was ceased when the gunman committed suicide.
even NASA has to lockdown sometimes . . .
see article
I'm glad that this is being talked about...
I am not advocating some sort of 'life in a tupperware bowl,' sort of existance... put away the 'Born Free,' albums...
I don't know, maybe it's an East-West Coast thing...
Any campus I was on, (professional, educational, quasi-medical,)
--You had to check in with someone.
During regular class hours? yeah, folks come and go, but most of the students show an ID card...
-After hours (like after 8 or so?) we'd sign in and just let folks know that we were there.
-This was in rural, urban, suburban... you name it, campuses.
I'm kind of floored at the attitudes that I find expressed sometimes here on Fresburg Famous...
-It's sooooo 'anti-cop,'
and sooooo 'who-the-hell-are-the-goossteppers-sticking-their-noses-in-our-business?'
Even if the college campus is a State School, it's still property that is to be patrolled by someone, and there's nothing wrong with that.
A security force in a college, (or anywhere,) is not looking to replicate Hitler's German, nor Stalin's Russia...
They are simply there to provide safety and sanctuary.
(Remarkably, society seems to need someone to help them behave once in a while, ---and (holy-toledo,) everyonce in a while you have folks who do not mean well entering campuses, and doing such things as stealing, vandalizing, raping, etc...
-Campus Police are there to keep on top of that.
-I noticed that each highschool and most middleschools have police officers assigned to them..
---I don't even think we have that strong a presence StateWide back home.. (the 'tough-city-schools', yeah, sure... but out here you have police on campus as a regular thing...
The whole issue of police on campus with the colleges makes sense in that:
-when campus cops are doing their job?
-all they are doing is insuring safety... (no intruders, nobody looking to come into a dorm and do something awful, cars not being stolen, place being kept safe...
-that's it.
What gets me about this guy who shot up VPI-SU is that he had obvious flags thrown down by faculty and residential life staff for a looooong time.
-Teachers had code words established with their assistants to alert the police if they felt uncomfortable.
-He had idolized really horrendous acts of cruelty and violence (including against teachers and such,) in his writing assignments.
-He was very self-destructive, and was extremely implosive, and had been for some time...
-His roomies said that he rarely spoke, and never looked them in the eye, and was 'pent up all the time.'
---20 20 hindsight is great... but this kid was clearly disturbed and expressed his disturbances time and time again...
-Though there is only SO much you can do? nobody really did anything, and (if) this kid was so notorious? how did a shooting (at his dorm,) not spark a response of '...looks like the guy we've been keeping an eye on finally blew..'
Having worked with people who are under very very unfortunate mental straits for years, believe me, the staff and security forces of org.'s know who they are concerned about, ---especially if they've come up on the radar before...
It's not often that folks just suddenly 'freak.'
What I see with VPI-SU is a situation that should have been heeded and dealt with a long time ago...
Now? largest campus shooting in US history.
I don't think that State, City, or Fres-Pac should suddenly be a 'lock down,' campus...
--but what means 'lock down,'?
Security knowing who is on or off campus, for the most part is not 'lock-down,'
-'lock-down,' is everybody in their rooms, or their dorms, and not being permitted to go anywhere...
I think the situation should be addressed and handled more effectively, because to be honest?
It's the people who are so freaked out about 'police state' this or that, ---who are going to be screaming for the Chief's head on a stick, if something horrible should happen.
-This is a violent town...
-There's tons of gangs, lots of guns, and plenty of folks who (surprise,) if they think nothing of driving drunk, probably aren't sweating carrying a weapon or 'acting out,' when intoxicated, (you're lucky if it's just some drunk plowing a tree... last year I was narrowly missed by a guy who was snoggered that wiped out a car in front of the college, and seriously injured 5 people, (a whole family.)
People have to stop thinking with this 'nothing touches us here,' attitude in terms of safety and such... I mean, some of the mannerisms and views are still back in the 50's, but this is Fresno... not Pleasantville.
there is more wrong...
in students being gunned down in a classroom.
I am sure that you are not blind to seeing how those students could (key word because nothing is fail-safe) still be alive if something, anything, had been done in the two hours between.
I am also sure that you must be aware that lockdowns take place at Fresno Unified schools fairly regularly. Is that wrong? When appropriate, lockdowns are lifted. Normal school resumes. Is that living in a world on lockdown? Or is it taking precautions that may be saving students lives?
There is something wrong...
Living in a world on lockdown.
when necessary, yes. why not?
check points can be necessary at times. they don't need to be permanent. and no system is going to stop every crime. as for VT? as soon as it became known that a murder had taken place on campus and the gunman was on the loose, you bet your famous ass there should have been checkpoints setup. and lockdown. that would have helped.
and as far as dorms go, whenever I visited my friend at cal poly, i had to check in as a guest. absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Are you...
Seriously suggesting there be checkpoints in and out of Fresno State? Wasn't the kid who did this shooting a student? What good would a checkpoint have done?
not enough?
yeah, that bothers me too. it takes very little effort to check on visitors. it should be standard daily routine.
i went to class today with a very strange feeling. for the most part everything seemed the same. but i knew that in the back of everybody's mind was the question, how would i get out of here if somebody opened up the door and started shooting. in the particular room i was in, the windows are the upper 2 or 3 feet of the classroom. out of reach. they don't open. if you had to, i suppose you could throw a desk up and out. but that would take a good amount of time. so basically, inside a classroom, you are trapped. it's a sickening feeling to imagine the desparation the students felt.
it didn't take long for someone to bring the subject up before class. and we tried to make light of it by laughing off the english major connection. surely it must have been the chaucer requirement (which we were sitting in) that finally set him off. not all that funny. at one point during class, someone opened our classroom door, apparently early for the next class. even our prof paused as we all held our breath and looked at the door to see who was there. it was nothing. but the tension was definitely in the room.
re: when is too much
In 1983 at the college I was attending, in a dorm I was on duty as a uniformed private patrol officer.
(Campus Cop. -we were certified to carry arms, I was certified to carry arms.)
We worked closely with the city police department as well.
I received a phone call that there was a bomb in the building.
I was told that it would blow up in two minutes.
The building was a 17 story hi-rise (an older hotel,) that had both my college, as well as a sister college's students living in it.
It would take me at least 30 seconds to get the elevator to go to the top floor, and I had a roof and a basement and sub-basement to check.
It was the middle of a sunday afternoon, so the dorms were sort of quiet, and it was (if I recall,) maybe half full.
This would be a few hundred students instead of several hundred to evacuate.
-My desk was the main entrance and exit, but there were other ways into the building, and on a weekend you had lots of people coming and going.
I immed. radio'd into my supervisor, phoned into the main office, and began to check the building floor by floor.
I was told to not tell anyone what I was checking for to prevent a panic.
I found a gym bag on one of the middle floors with a bunch of socks and papers in it, on one of the papers was the word 'boom,' written.
It took me about fifteen minutes to find the bag,)
-the caller said that I had two.
We never found out who it was.
That was a long time ago, but there was violence in the city, it wasn't in a great area, and it was not too far from the time of the MOVE bombings that happened a bit west of our dorms.
-The bombings burned down, I think two to three city blocks, (maybe more??)
We were in constant contact with each other, and we had several buildings to cover, guards at each building, and were constantly on patrol. (I knew every inch of any building I was assigned to, had even named some of the rats and pidgeons fer godssakes.)
-and that was well over twenty years ago before 9/11 and all...
What gets me is this.
Having lived in college dorms, having done security, having been impromptu security on campus's and having done both residential, corporate, and hospital security...
-even on the day of this shooting having taken place, yesterday?
I was able to just drive onto CalState Fresno, (to deliver a bicycle to a friend of mine who was there for a few hours, I had just finished working on it for him, it's not far from where I live.)
-no security checks
-nobody stopped and asked me anything
-I have no student or parking identification stickers of any sort on my pickup.
-a police car rode directly across the path of my truck.
-I am not a student, (yet,) I wasn't dressed like one, don't look like one, and I clearly don't look 18.
-I have (essentially,) no business being on campus.
-It also dawned on me that the college has dorms, as I rode up in the middle of them... (it was my second time on campus, ever.)
Once on campus?
-I parked where I wanted,
-took the bike in to the building where my friend was and proceeded to hang out with them for a while,
-and then went back out, chat with them about the bike, and then proceed to leave...
Now, it's a gorgeous campus,
I care for my friends dearly,
and it was a beautiful night ta boot.
It was not especially late, but it was after 9pm.
Bottom line?
I didn't have to sign in anywhere...
Nobody checked me out,
and I passed several students and faculty, and went into a building where there were classes going on.
Nobody confronted me the slightest...
-This was yesterday, the day of the shooting.
-As a friend who was just delivering the bike,
who was just going back onto campus and enjoying a beautiful night, (running an errand?,)
I was glad for the convenience of it all.
-But seriously?
Nobody knew if I was there for good or bad reasons, and I don't know a blessed soul on security.
(-and they just drove up to my truck, stopped, and turned and kept on going.)
Now, VPISU IS basically the town of Blacksburgh.
The campus is huge, it's sprawling...
It's hard to be anywhere in the town, and not be 'on campus,'
(the town is small, it's very very intermingled.)
I was there long ago, when the college was even smaller.
CSUF?
I was clearly on their property.
Their property is not that big.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I've done security for colleges and campus' before.
Considering the days events?
I wouldn't have minded someone stopping me and asking where I was going.
(The officer in the cruiser acrossed the intersection ON CAMPUS perhaps.)
As I pulled out onto Shaw and headed back home?
I passed a news van with the antenna all the way up, obviously broadcasting...
It didn't dawn on me until I got home that they were probably asking about the shootings... maybe about how secure things were.
It just bothers me.
sense of security
Of all places, we like to think that we are safe on the grounds of a school. There are certainly many questions as to how such a thing can happen that a shooting can occur on campus and then two hours later a massacre takes place. We assume that our schools have plans for such things. Campuses across the country/globe need to learn from this. It is a difficult situation to handle. But again we assume that plans are in place for every possible situation. Certainly when these things have happened before.
On the other hand, when there are complaints about plain clothes police officers on campus, schools begin to wonder how much security is too much. It would have made sense to me that a great police presence would have made its way to the campus inbetween the two shootings, plain clothes or uniformed. I would welcome such a presence after students have been murdered in the dorm.
Instead, the threat level on campus was raised to orange and everyone was expected to become vigilant and wary of suspicious activity. Too late at that point. Wrong decisions were made. 20/20 hindsight. But like I said, every campus needs to learn from this and have the plan in place to at least make an attempt to help protect.
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