February 18, 2008

Safety at School

A student was arrested Friday morning on campus. Someone had tipped off the school about an "indirect threat" made on his myspace page. In his car were 2 BB guns, a 4 inch knife and a taser gun.

How was I alerted to this? By the school, dutifully alerting students to the potential danger? Sending warnings via e-mail, advising us all to stay away from campus, to keep indoors, to stay safe?

No. I was alerted to this today. When my father called me to ask if I knew the kid who had been arrested. My response was "Huh? The Northwestern guy? Didn't he die?"

There was a gun wielding potential shooter on campus and they decided not to alert students because, and I quote, "the university community was not alerted to the incident "because there was no direct threat to the campus.""

I feel betrayed by my school. I was on campus Friday morning. I was there. So were countless other students. When does it become a direct threat? Is it when the shooter is in the building and the bullets are already flying? Is it when innocent people are injured or dead?

I feel betrayed. But worse than that... I don't feel safe.

6 comments:

mrspao said...

Hug. How awful for that to happen and no one say anything particularly after the events of last week.

Holly said...

I'm sending good, safe thoughts your way. I don't know the answer to this. After what happend at NIU it's hard to imagine feeling safe at school again. Take care of you.

Chris said...

I don't think there are easy answers to this one.

Traceyleezle said...

Oh wow, yeah, that is kinda scary. I agree with Chris. I would be interested to know what their definition of a "real threat" would be.

Diane said...

I'm wondering what a direct threat would look like. I'd be upset too. The school is happy to take your money but doesn't warn of dangers or bother to send anyone out for fire alarms. Shows you where their interests lay .... it's all about the money.

pao said...

I guess that the school wanted to avoid undue panic by keeping it quiet, since it made the news anyway then they should have told you guys/girls rather than let it come out this way. It is not as if they are trying to sell the place to you and you are going to leave - they have your money.

Seeing these incidents from across the pond though does make me boggle about the apparent (to me) lack of gun control over there. Yes I know that the gun lobby have persuasive arguements and money to back that up. But still...