How USU would handle a school shooting

A year has passed since the tragic Virginia Tech massacre that took the lives of 32 people, and in that time agencies across the country have reevaluated how they would respond to these situations. So how prepared is USU if an event like Virginia Tech were to happen? How have plans changed?

USU Police Operations Lt. Shane Sessions said USU is located in a city similar to Blacksburg, Va., home of the Virginia Tech Hokies, and the similarities could set up comparable situations.

On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho walked into West Ambler Johnston Hall, a residence hall around 7:15 a.m. and shot and killed two students. Sessions said the police arrived on the scene about three to five minutes after the call came in, a fast response time considering traveling distance. Then, about two hours later, Cho went to Norris Hall, a building with many classrooms. He chained the doors and went to the second floor, where he began his shooting rampage. Sessions said the locked doors made it difficult for police to get into the building, but once they gained entrance and started yelling, Cho had turned the gun on himself, ending the massacre.

Sessions said the response by the police was good. He said part of the reason so many people died, even with a fast response time by police, was the large number of bullets that can be fired by a gunman in the time it takes police to arrive.

“They had, in our minds having been through a review, had staged very well because they didn’t know if the first shooting was related to the second shooting, but they had staged in case there was an ongoing, continuing threat,” he said. “They were very well prepared. That’s one of the things that unfortunately the news media have glossed over and have not given much say to that, which is unfortunate, because they’ve really critiqued the police agencies that responded. I think they did a fabulous job in their response.”

So what if something similar happened at USU, how would the USU and Logan Police respond?

Playing out a similar scenario, Sessions said it would take the police about the same amount of time to arrive at a residence hall. But during the time the police are traveling to the scene, many events would be occurring simultaneously. Calls would be sent to outside agencies, school administrators, EMS and hospitals, alerting them for the possibility of mass casualty, he said. Administrators would then be responsible for alerting the students, faculty and staff about the shooting, as well as alerting the news media to get the word out in a more timely manner, he said.

One area that has been practiced since the shooting, is using the Aggie Shuttles for transporting wounded, but not critical, victims to the hospital.

“It could be that we utilize, which we have practiced before, using the university shuttles to transport a number of injured because this valley does not have unlimited ambulances and if we were to call upon Box Elder or Tremonton for ambulances, they would come but they’re going to be 30-45 minutes out,” Sessions said. “Whereas, we know we can grab a shuttle bus, load up those who aren’t too bad, and get them down to the hospital quicker.”

Sessions said once police arrived, they would secure the scene and begin gathering evidence and questioning witnesses.

“We would be securing the scene, talking to witnesses, what did you see, who did you see, and then we would be alerting all the agencies out there what potential suspect we’re looking for, what direction they might be going, the type of vehicle they might be driving, what they look like, and that’s what we would be doing,” he said. “Again, we would probably respond in a manner to the campus saying, ‘Look, there has been a shooting, you probably need to be cautious, the shooter is no longer here, appears to only be going for one person, but you may want to stay tight where you are and be secure.'”

But what if the shooter moved to another location, like at Virginia Tech? Sessions said the police would be able to arrive in about three and a half to five minutes, with USU Police likely being a first responder. An officer would not go into the building alone, Sessions said, rather the officer would wait for another officer, regardless of which force the officer may be from. Sessions said all the local police agencies have trained together for an active shooter scenario, so they know how to work with one another and can immediately enter a building when two officers are on the scene.

“The university has for a number of years, since Columbine, trained the officers in what’s called the active shooter,” Sessions said. “The philosophy up to that point, in law enforcement, was the patrol officers would arrive, contain the scene and wait for the SWAT team to arrive. Well, the tactic proved to not be effective because meantime the boys in Columbine were just continually killing things. So the tactics were changed where now the officers, they pull up on scene and wait until there’s at least two officers, no officer goes in alone. They go in a team of two, the best is four, but at least in a team of two.”

Sessions said even if the doors to a building on campus were chained, like at Virginia Tech, this wouldn’t prove as much of a problem at USU as it did there because most of the exterior doors have glass, which the police could knock out and gain access in a matter of a few seconds.

“As soon as they make entry, their objective is to go right to where the action is and put a stop to it,” Sessions said. “It’s a difficult training because, one, officers have this desire to help those who are wounded or injured, and yet we’re going to have to walk right by, step by, people who are grabbing at us saying, ‘Help me,’ and we’re going to have to ignore them and go directly to the point of action and take whatever means necessary to stop the life-threatening injuries, the killing, whatever it is.”

Officers would enter the building with guns drawn, most likely rifles, Sessions said, because a rifle has better accuracy over longer distances, which would likely be the case in a hallway of a building on campus.

“Guns are out, they’re going to use lethal force to bring this to an end,” Sessions said. “The individual is using lethal force, he’s got a gun – a rifle, a pistol – we’re not going to be polite and timid and say, ‘Hey, you know you can’t do that.’ We’re going to have our guns out, we’re going to be using strong verbal presence, strong verbal commands: Drop the gun. Even if we don’t get that chance, we’re going to be shooting to bring an end.”

Sessions said the officers will be pretty well protected from potential returning fire by the gunman because of the bullet-proof vests all officers wear, and even if they were hit, the wound would likely be non-lethal and the officer could continue shooting – something officers are trained to do in simulated airsoft or paintball scenarios.

“Being hit doesn’t mean that you’re dead,” he said. “There have been multiple instances where people have been shot and have continued to fight on and function and ultimately win the game.”

Because officers are trained in an active shooter scenario and know the layout of the buildings well, being required to spend a certain amount of foot patrol time in each building on campus, the officers should be able to get to the shooter in a timely manner and end the conflict, Sessions said. But, he said, by the time most officers have reached the shooter in past school shootings, the shooter has usually killed himself, or will turn himself in.

Sessions said the USU police and local police have trained and are ready if a shooting event were to ever happen. But what would be the university’s response? How would they alert students?

“Right now, the systems that are in place are fairly basic,” Sessions said. “One, there’s the phone tree, where I call you and you call two people and it just starts spreading. We have the mass e-mail alert. We have AM/FM radio announcements. We also have the ability, not at the moment, to send out a mass text message. But we could start sending them to certain phones and they could start sending them to people, which is what happened at Virginia Tech.

“The university is currently, to my understanding, sending out a bid to certain providers that would have the capability for students to enlist and enroll in the program. If something happens, they get that instant text message. Right now we don’t have that in place, it will probably be here in the near future, but we could send out text messages via friends or associates and friends and that would spread as well.”

Sessions said another possibility would be to pull a fire alarm and evacuate people, though evacuation may not always be the best plan depending on the situation.

So with a plan in place by the university administration and police, the big question is where would be the most likely place on campus for a shooting to happen. Sessions said there is not one area more likely to be targeted than another, as it would likely depend on the individual shooter and their frustration. Sessions said most shooters feel some sort of injustice and want to take it out on the people that they have felt have wronged them, leaving the entire campus an open target.

“Really you can’t say that any one area is more dangerous than another,” Sessions said. “I really think all areas have a level of danger associated because anyone can be mad at them.”

As proof of a shooter targeting those who are perceived to be in the wrong, Weber State University had a school shooting in 1993, resulting in three injured people and the death of the shooter. According to a July 9, 1993 New York Times article on the shooting, Mark Duong, a computer science major, was involved in a school disciplinary council and at one point stood and shot three people with a .22-caliber revolver. A police officer was in the meeting because of previous volatile and violent behavior of Duong, and was shot in the face by Duong. The officer returned fire, killing Duong.

“That is a situation that is real to life that happened in this state,” Sessions said. “A number of campus shootings that have occurred in this country occurred in either some type of disciplinary setting or frustration over a grade or they’re about to meet to defend their thesis or dissertation and they already have an idea that it’s not going to go their way, so they’ve made up their mind that they’re going to take some kind of action against the people who have wronged them.”

So what can be done to prevent these type of violent outbreaks in the future? Sessions said it is difficult to determine who will snap and start shooting and when, but the person usually is frustrated over some perceived injustice – real or not – which can usually be resolved if a friendly hand is extended and helps them through it.

“We’re always trying to think of ways to prepare, what can we do to show that we’re there,” Sessions said. “We’d like to prevent it before it occurs, but a lot of that prevention can’t come from us, it has to come from the community as whole. We’ve got to be more caring, we’ve got to reach out to those who are struggling.

“In some cases, the student can just, with a little hand of friendship, be directed to the right source to get the problem solved. To them it’s a huge factor, but for most of us it’s probably not a big deal. For this student, it could mean a difference between life and death.”

-seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu