Timely Warnings

A jury found Virginia Tech negligent for delays in warnings about the 2007 shooting on their campus today, awarding $4 million each to families of two victims who sued arguing that the school's delay in warning the campus contributed to the deaths of their children.

There's no doubt this was a tragedy- one that, having lived through the school shootings of the mid-to-late 90s, I can honestly say touched me more personally than I had expected. Nowadays, the vast majority of educational institutions are bound under something called the Clery Act, a Federal law which mandates that students, faculty and staff recieve 'timely warnings' of situations that could pose a threat to any given campus.

Doing what I do, I'm oh so familiar with the Clery Act- whenever a critical incident occurs on campus a debate usually begins as to whether we need to issue a Hawk Alert of some kind. The variables that go into this debate are usually decided by people more important then me (read: our administration) but how the public percieves the success of these alerts doesn't conceal the fact that they have to be sent. It gets more complicated given the blurred juristictions that border the University campus and sometimes even more complex if another agency is taking lead on the matter- we cannot, after all, compromise what they're doing.

Was Virgina Tech negligent? The short answer is, I don't know. The gap of time between the initial shooting at the dorms followed by the shootings at the engineering building was significant. Police could have reasonably concluded that the first shootings were isolated incidents- but one thing that keeps going over and over in my head is where was the shooter? If two people have been shot and you don't know where the shooter is, why not keep everyone in place until you do?

It's easy to say that though- in hindsight everything is 20-20. All you can do if you're in a situation like that is the best you can given the fact you've got in front of you. You'll probably do better than expected but nobody is perfect. Mistakes can be made. Assumptions can be incorrect and in situations like they had at Virginia Tech, those mistakes, decisions and assumptions had tragic consequences. I sit behind a desk and I'm good at what I do, but even I am constrained in this age of instant communication by the information our officers have in front of them at any given moment.

Rest assured, Virgina Tech changed things in a big way- especially for Campus Law Enforcement Agencies. Here in Iowa, it was the prime mover in finally getting all three forces at the Regents' Universities full armed. Our communications equipment is top-notch, our people are good and while nobody can promise perfection- people at all levels train hard, learn what they can and try their best to be as prepared as possible.

And really, that's all we can do...