News: Students and Faculty Shook Up Over Emergency Drill

[lukem]

On Friday, an undercover campus officer barged into a classroom on Elizabeth State University to act out an emergency drill on the campus. He even held a gun to the professor's head. The officer carried a red plastic gun but according to the professor, he didn't have time to realize the gun was fake.

The school started sending out email alerts to students that signed up for the alerts stating there would be some type of drill on Friday but did not mention what type and any details of the drill. Shortly before the drill on Friday, the school sent out another alert stating there would be an armed intruder in Moore building but did not specify which classroom.

The problem is that only have half the campus signed up for these alerts. Most of the students in the classroom as well as the professor had no idea this was going on. According to Professor Jinbin Wang, everyone was scared and some students were prepared to jump out of the window.

When the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Anthony Brown was asked about the incident, he apologized for scaring or shocking everyone. He mentioned they sent out the email and text alerts but agreed that he knew only half of the campus had signed up for them. Then he added that they should also be relying on word of mouth to communicate these types of things.

I remember being in school and having fire drills. I'm pretty certain that most of the faculty knew about them when they happened. But to have someone barge into a classroom with a gun to act out one of these violent crimes as a drill is going a bit too far in my opinion. What if someone would have been carrying a concealed firearm? I know it is illegal to do so in North Carolina but what if? I bet they aren't planning any drill like these in Utah where it IS legal to carry concealed on campus.

What are your thoughts?

 

[DrLewall]

I agree, the faculty/staff should have been advised! Did someone stay up all night thinking on this one?

 

[KimberRB]

This is nuts! I bet the person that came up with this will be in hot water. And I agree what if someone would have had a gun. I just don’t want to think about it. An officer would have been shot and the crap about CC would start all over. THANK PEOPLE!

 

[HK4U]

Sounds like a good way to get someone hurt or killed.

 

[Red Hat]

What a bunch of educated idiots! How do you run a drill in a gun free zone? What was he going to do...hand out signs to clip on their shirt, "Dead", "Wounded" or "Heart Attack"! I guess this is the only time it was good to be a Gun Free Zone! It was also a good thing that no one was carrying anyway ignoring the GFZ.

 

[kwo51]

Yeper lots of dirty underware. Lots of good thinking went into this.

 

[mom of 3 angels]

If it was a gun free zone, was the assailant using one of those blue dummy guns? Or one with an orange plug in the barrel?

As far as letting people know what's going on, relying on word of mouth is faulty logic anyway, but if that was their only means of getting the word out besides the email/text alerts then they needed to provide more time for the word to spread. We had a lockdown drill at our elementary school and I don't think they even brought in anybody to be the armed intruder, but it was advertised all over the place with lots of explanation of what would be happening for 2 weeks prior to the event. Granted ours was an elementary school and this happened in a college, but it's just as frightening if not more so for the college kids. They definitely needed a better notification system. Very good for whoever planned this that there were not students/faculty allowed to carry or they could have had more serious problems than students shaken up over the ordeal!

 

[rlsmaritime]

My reaction to this is really mixed but what it really comes down to is this:

Everytime there is an incident on a GFZ campus, two things seem to happen:

1) no one can get the administration to recognize that they have taken away the ability of individuals to protect themselves and to do away with the GFZ status of the grounds and buildings

2) the administration sets up some type of notification system to let folks know that something is amiss, and advises everyone about how to enroll in the system.

The result is predictable in that no one can carry a defensive item on capmpus and but only about half sign up for notifications....the latter because they expect that someone else will take care of them and that they will be spoon-fed any and all critical information.

It is unfortunate that some of them were "scared" but then, too bad. They were offered a means to have been informed of the drill but made a choice not to participate. The administration used the system , so who's fault is it that some people didn't get the word.

Better to be scared now than dead later. Hopefully, sign up for the notification system will be near 100% soon.

 

[Danno]

He is really lucky someone didn't shoot him. GFZ or not - I bet there are students that are going to CCW - their life may depend on it!

 

[PascalFleischman]

What are your thoughts?

Good thing THAT particular campus was a gun-free zone at that point. We might be less one undercover officer that decided to abandon all logic.

 

[toreskha]

How long has it been since this LE agency did a basic tactical drill? There's blue guns, red guns, wooden guns, or you can use your finger. You can use a real (but verifiably unloaded) gun under very specific, controlled circumstances - which does not include interactions with the public. Real guns tend to make people believe that bullets are about to come out.

 

[kwo51]

We had one of those guns on a florida college campus (real thing) last week and my daughter got the text message the next day. Phone on 24/7. Good job.

 

[99sparks]

When I attend some classes a while back the first thing that happened was cell phones and pagers off! The professors did not like to be interrupted. Taking a cell call or getting up to return a page? I was 45 at the time and it didn’t bother me but some of the “kids” hated being with out cell phones, text messaging or, how do they say that, whatever?

 

[mom of 3 angels]

When I attend some classes a while back the first thing that happened was cell phones and pagers off! The professors did not like to be interrupted. Taking a cell call or getting up to return a page? I was 45 at the time and it didn’t bother me but some of the “kids” hated being with out cell phones, text messaging or, how do they say that, whatever?

I know when I went to college I had classes packed back to back a lot of times taking up most of the day with 10 minutes between to get from one end of campus to your class on the other end. If there are no cell phones/pagers on rules in class, even some of the half of the students registered for text/email alerts may not get them until hours after the message posted.

Guess the system is better than nothing, hopefully more that are able will sign up for it, but definitely has holes in it.

 

[lukem]

According to FoxNews.com, they DID use a red gun.

Link Removed

The campus police officer who played the role of the intruder carried a red plastic model gun, the school said in a news release.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Wang said the man came to the door and said he wanted to talk. "Suddenly the man pointed the gun at me," he said, adding that he didn't have time to consider whether the gun was real.

 

[Glock Fan]

"Red" gun "Blue" gun, or otherwise. People need to know that it's a training exercise. If it's "ok" because he used a "Red" or "Blue" gun, what are our criminals going to think. Will they start painting the real guns "Red" or "Blue"? This could have very devistating results.

ANYTIME anyone points a gun at me, regardless of what it appears to be, unless it's a training exercise, I take the appropriate measures. :03:



gf

 

[Memphis]

On one hand I'd say it was good to get the kids alert and see what their reaction would be.

On the other hand, when I participated in fire/hurricane drills in school we knew what we had to do and were to go. This seemed like it was done without any real point. Even if the kids knew what was going to happen; did they know what to do?

 

[mom of 3 angels]

On the issue of colored training guns, there are colored real guns available also. Just because it's red, blue, orange, etc. doesn't mean it's not real. Communication/notification was the major problem here.

 

[lukem]

"Red" gun "Blue" gun, or otherwise. People need to know that it's a training exercise. If it's "ok" because he used a "Red" or "Blue" gun, what are our criminals going to think. Will they start painting the real guns "Red" or "Blue"? This could have very devistating results.

ANYTIME anyone points a gun at me, regardless of what it appears to be, unless it's a training exercise, I take the appropriate measures. :03:



gf

I agree 100%. A friend just sent the fox article to me and thought I'd add that to my article.

 

[Glock Fan]

On the issue of colored training guns, there are colored real guns available also. Just because it's red, blue, orange, etc. doesn't mean it's not real. Communication/notification was the major problem here.

Great photo. We have a Beretta .22 NEOS that has a black frame with pretty blue inserts. The shape of the gun makes it look like a paint ball gun.

Are the guns pictured available in those colors from the factory, or are they "custom". I'd like to get a Glock 23 or 27 with a hot pink frame. I've been scanning the internet, but have yet to find a company that would do something like that.



gf