what if anything could of been done to warn students after the first shooting?

Question

should they have a siren warning of danger? i understand they thought it was an isolated crime but why not send warnings anyway it woulda saved lives

Answer 1

If they had a signal - everyone would have run out of the buildings - giving the killer more target practice! They would have been criticized for that too!

Answer 2

I think if the campus was locked down after the first shooting there would have been less deaths. They not only thought it was isolated crime (which is understandable) but they thought (correctly so) that he had left that building. Well he didn't vanish into thin air; he had to be somewhere. I think everyone should have been warned. Some may have chosen to leave campus or some may have chosen to stay in a locked room. Either way it would have been their choice. And if they had been quicker on informing everyone about the first shooting many of those people may not have been on campus at all. The man who took the film with his cell phone was already on campus and saw the police there before he had even heard of the first shooting. He said he would not have come in if he had heard about it on the news.

Answer 3

I read that there was a 2 hour period between the first attack and the second. That was PLENTY of time to get a warning out. They should have evacuated the school and took the necessary precautions to prevent a large scale massacre like this. Even if they thought it was an isolated crime, it was still on campus at a college and the entire college should have been evacuated for safety measures. Most schools are evacuated even when there is just a THREAT of violence, let alone an actual shooting. It was just not handled the best it could have been, and people's lives were taken because of that.

Answer 4

They should have gotten on an intercome or some kind of widestream communication system to make a public announcement about the first shooting, regardless of whether they thought it was an isolated incident or not. Either way, the gunman was still not apprehended and they should not have assumed that he fled the campus grounds. The e-mail system did not work, because almost nobody would check their e-mail at 7 something in the morning, especially if they are sleeping or rushing off to morning classes. Therefore, there should have been a public announcement and police going door to door informing students or at least shutting down the campus. It is ridiculous that students conituned to freely wander the campus, not aware of the possible danger.

Answer 5

I think a siren would be a great idea to be able to warn the students of a situation on their campus.

Sounds like a plan to me. I think that after even one shot a siren could be sounded and at least people could attempt to protect them selves. And at the same time the police would be alerted via the siren going off, could lead to a faster response time.

Yea, I think that would be good. Even if they thought it was an isolated incident or not sound the alarm and give a heads up that there has been a problem and that there still may be. Great idea.

I don't think that would mean that the students would have to run out of the buildings but rather they could have other procedures in place to be able to help protect them selves.

Answer 6

My understanding is that the police and administration did the best that they could with the information they had at the moment. You can second-guess them all you want, but the facts are that they thought the first shooting in the dorm was a possible murder-suicide. That means that they thought there was no need to worry about gunman on the loose. They didn't know that he was still out there until they got calls of shootings 1/2 mile away. By then, he had apparently chained doors shut, and was well into the 2nd spree.

News reports are coming out that he was a troubled person and a loner. That matches with other cases of lone gunmen. People will probably now start pointing fingers and saying that "someone" should have done something. The fact is, someone did do something. A professor referred him to counseling, but at this point, nobody knows if he went.

I'll bet if you think about it, you can come up with some people you know personally who are loners and probably "troubled" in one manner or another. Are you personally going to tell them to go get counseling? Are you going to force them to go? Are you going to pay for it? Or are you going to start carrying a weapon yourself, so you can defend yourself against them?

Before you start pointing fingers, assigning blame, or telling us all what "they" should have done, put yourself in "their" position, and ask yourself, what would you have done, HAD YOU BEEN THERE AT THAT TIME AND HAD ONLY THE INFORMATION THAT THESE OFFICIALS HAD.

Addendum:

I've gone back and read some of the messages posted here, and can't help but wonder: If you were on this campus, and the shootings ended with just the first two, but the administration and campus police locked down the entire campus - you were confined to your dorm room, class room, or wherever you were at that time, for say 4-8 hours - what would your reaction have been? My guess is that you would have howled about the heavy-handed tactics that the authorities were using, and how they were over-reacting. Put yourself in that position for just a couple of moments, and then tell me I'm not right.

Answer 7

Many schools in the U.S. now can send warnings to students by text message. Seeing as most if not all people carry cell phones nowadays, a text message could have notified all students and professors without causing too much panic, like a siren would. Sending a message like, "911 Warning - School shooter on the loose. Stay inside, away from windows, and lock all doors. Police on the way." could have saved the 30 people who lost their lives in classrooms.

What happened yesterday is now in the past, and those 33 people are dead. Wondering what could have happened is useless; what we need to do now is prevent another tragedy.

Answer 8

I do think that part of the problem was that they thought it was an isolated crime, and that they did not want to panic the entire campus. 25.000 people in a panic gives a lot of problems, don't forget that the police already had trouble with stettling the students at the dorm. Logical of course, but still. Also they decided to sent warning emails, a soon as they found out that this could be bigger.
I think that the main problem was not the lack of warning, but that the gunman had barricaded the main exits. Had this not been done, a lot more people would have survived.

Answer 9

It seems like a lot more could have been done. The police knew there was an armed killer on the campus yet they didn't' tell students to stay in there dorms. The school president should have ordered a lock down on every building on the campus. The school should have alerted the media that there was an armed gunman and the students should stay in their dorm. They should have alterted school emails, and adviced all dorm masters to keep the students locked in the dorms. Instead the president of the school did nothing. He didn't even ordered that the buildings be locked down. If there was a gunman on one floor of a hospital the police would have locked down the entire hospital. It is sad that the police and school president made so many mistakes.

Answer 10

It is possible to send one email mesesage to a virtually unlimited number of addresses. It is possible to receive email via text message on one's cell phone. This is probably the least expensive, most effective, emergency message system available to a university. An email/text message to everyone at the university who had registered a cell phone--which would have included most of the commuters, which one proponent of silence claimed made a campus lockdown impractical--would have had the campus cleared by 8:30. With all dorms locked, everyone in their rooms away from the windows, all business buildings closed and locked with faculty/staff/commuters gone home, it is unlikely he would've been able to cause as much trouble. The possible exception is his own dorm, but we don't even know if he went back there. Of course, if he had, he could've wreaked havoc, because near as we can tell he was walking around anonymously. But it is doubtful he would've done quite as much damage because there wouldn't have been more than 2-3 people to a room. In Norris, he walked into classrooms of 20-30.

I am a huge proponent of a person's right to protect themselves, and to make their own decisions about how is best to do that. I was upset they didn't lockdown the campus from the first second I heard, which was when they were claiming only one person had died. Yes, avoiding mass panic is desireable, but you don't pretend a building ISN'T burning, or that a killer ISN'T (or might not be) walking around. That is lying. Every college and university in the country needs to evaluate their emergency procedures after this.

Systems of this kind are available. I used to live in a flood zone, and when waters were rising, a computer called my telephone with a message saying "waters are rising, prepare to evacuate." I don't know how long this system took, but it was entirely automated.

Answer 11

I don't think there are much that Virginia Tech could do at that moment.
Siren?: student will not understand what exactly happened by hearing the siren. Should they stay in or go out? Either way, there is a chance to get hurt.
Shut down the school right after the first shooting?: imagine over 20,000 people, student, employee, all rush out to the parking lot or the bus terminals? The gunman could find target easily at parking lot or bus station. He had determined to kill...very sad tragedy.. but it is hard to prevent or predict.