Local College Causes Stir With Gunman Drill
Some Elizabeth State University students are upset after being almost scared to death by a recent safety drill on campus.
On Friday, an undercover campus officer barged into a history class in the Moore building and held the class hostage. According to students, he even held a gun to the professor's head! It was all part of an emergency alert system drill that the school was planning for months. Problem is...not everyone knew it was a drill.
Four days earlier, the school did begin sending out emails to students saying there would be some sort of emergency drill on Friday. It did not specify where or exactly what time the drill would occur. It also did not mention the nature of the drill.
Then, on Friday, a few minutes before it all went down, the school sent out an alert saying there would be an armed intruder in Moore building who would be detained by campus police. Again, it did not specify which classroom. However, only about half the campus has voluntarily signed up for the instant text alerts to their phones, so most people in that particular classroom, including the professor in that class, had no idea it was a drill.
By phone on Monday morning, Professor Jingbin Wang said he was shocked and did not know it was a drill. "Everyone was scared," he said. He said some students were prepared to jump out the window. Another colleague told him that her students were using tables and chairs to block the door of their classroom. "Her heart was racing," he said about his fellow teacher.
"I cannot believe a university would subject their own students to such a horrific event," one family member of a student in that classroom wrote us. " They were terrified! It is extremely poor judgement on the part of the administration at ECSU."
Effective training for students in the wake of the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings? Or a safety drill taken one step too far?
Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Anthony Brown took our questions Monday afternoon.
"If there are people who have concerns and they were surprised, it was not our intention to surprise or shock anybody and if that occurs we are there for them," said Brown. "I really offer our sincere apology, because that was not the intent of this."
Then we asked him point blank, "Don't you think a normal person would be shocked if the person coming at their professor with a gun was a campus officer?
"Well, we did send out emails five days in advance and continued it through with alerts," said Brown.
We then pointed out that those initial alerts did not mention a gunman!
"No," he said. "That alert occurred on the day, on the day of the event."
So then we pressed further, that isn't it true that the school was absolutely aware that not all students would get that alert because not all students are signed up for the alert.
"That's absolutely true," he said. "That's where we have to test out the system and our communication among each other. Because if your neighbor knows something and you don't that tests something, that tests the communication. We should look out for each other, so that's something we learned. Paper and text and emails are one thing, but word of mouth is perhaps most important."
Again, word of mouth obviously did not spread around in time for the students in this classroom to get the warning this was a drill.
One student we talked to requested a private meeting with administration regarding her terrifying experience during the drill.
For now, the school is standing by the drill, saying that the administration, campus police and students learned from the experience. More drills are planned.
If you would like to sign up for the school's alerts to come instantly to your cell or your email, head to
http://www.ecsc.edu and look for the sparkly icon at the very top of the homepage called PIER Emergency Communications System.
