Plans to improve security and communication in emergency situations on campus were addressed at the Academic Senate meeting May 14 by Pierce College President Robert Garber.
“One of the problems at Virginia Tech was that there was no communication telling people to stay in one place,” said Garber.
He is in the process of meeting with Sprint Nextel to discuss having a wireless two-way phone in every room that connects directly to the sheriff’s station.
“A one button connection with the campus sheriff’s dispatch that would also enable us to be able to localize a room, a building or a section of the campus to give some communication back,” Garber said.
He also suggested having emergency guidelines circulated to faculty stating exactly what to do in the event of an emergency.
“They can be distributed on emergency cards, three-hole punched and put in front of roll sheets,” Garber said.
Students can be proactive in taking security measures by being more aware of their surroundings and knowing the facts regarding school violence.
According to some of the key findings on the safe school initiative final report done by the United States Secret Service, “Incidents of targeted violence at school are rarely sudden, impulsive acts. Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s idea or plan to attack. There is no accurate or useful profile of students who engaged in targeted school violence.”
“The same characteristics or appearances don’t necessarily lead to the same outcome,” said Garber. “The big thing was that virtually in all cases where there was a school shooting, somebody else knew that it was going to happen, somebody else was inside of that person’s thinking and in all of those cases nobody did anything about it.”