Virginia Tech, School, and Workplace Violence An Expert’s Perspective
Analysis: Tragic Lessons from Virginia Tech by Lt. Col. David Grossman
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I've been predicting for years that a tragedy like Virginia Tech would occur, and I am so very sad to be proven correct.
The kids who gave us Jonesboro in the middle school and Columbine in the high school are now giving us Virginia Tech in the colleges. And this generation, steeped as it is in violent images in video games, television, and movies, will give us workplace violence in the years to come, on the same, ever escalating scale.
Again, I pray that I'm wrong. But for police the message is clear: Keep your powder dry.
The Virginia Tech killer showed what one determined adult can do. Virginia Tech could have been worse. Imagine what a cell of trained Islamist terrorists could do in a school? In the case of Virginia Tech, police arrived on the seen at Norris Hall within 9 minutes.
(Reports of those on the ground say it was more like 7 minutes.) I don't know how any agency in the world could have done any better, short of having armed men in the building. There is no way on earth they could have done any better, as far as law enforcement response goes.
Remember, it was only after law enforcement arrived that this mass murderer killed himself. How many more could he have killed with an additional 9 minutes? Yet many colleges do not permit their officers to be armed. In such a college any armed response has to come from outside, and would generally take much longer.
The harsh lesson for parents: Do not send your kids to any college where the campus police are not armed. Colleges that are so removed from reality as to refuse to arm certified police officers are negligent and grossly irresponsible. Such colleges do not deserve to have the lives of your children entrusted to their care. Be sure to ask about such matters before you allow your student to attend any college.
A few other key lessons from this that no one can deny:
All schools, from kindergarten to college, must have classrooms with two ways out, even if one of them is a window. On one side of the building where the Virginia Tech massacre occurred, the students could not exit from the windows. This is a case where the fire code and the safety code should have full agreement.
Secondly, all schools must have classrooms that can be secured quickly. Professors and students blocking doors with their bodies are classic cases of heroic efforts to overcome inexcusable negligence in classroom safety. In isolated cases, nationwide, teachers have told me that the local fire marshal objects to this initiative, believing that quick escape in case of a fire is a greater priority. Here is a case where the fire marshal and the fire code may have to compromise, and the police chief should dig his heels in and go toe-to-toe with the fire chief to seek a compromise over this issue. Not one child has died in school fire in all of North America in over a quarter of a century. But entirely too many have died from school violence.
Classrooms have fire sprinklers, fire exits, fire codes, fire alarms and smoke alarms. We need to find a way to provide the same kind of protection from violence. We need a 'safety code' just like the fire code, and the fire professional and the law enforcement professional must to work together to find compromises where there is conflict between these two requirements.
I think this university deserves to be chastised for creating this no-gun zone. "No Gun Zones" should be labeled "Helpless Victim Zones." Once again we see that the killers are looking for a body count, and they carefully choose their target and plan their attack.
Honest citizens obey the law, and killers do not. No sane citizen should send a child to attend such a campus. Sadly, we live in an age in which sane people must declare Cogito, ergo armatum sum: I think, therefore I am armed.
Analysis: Tragic Lessons from Virginia Tech by Lt. Col. David Grossman
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I've been predicting for years that a tragedy like Virginia Tech would occur, and I am so very sad to be proven correct.
The kids who gave us Jonesboro in the middle school and Columbine in the high school are now giving us Virginia Tech in the colleges. And this generation, steeped as it is in violent images in video games, television, and movies, will give us workplace violence in the years to come, on the same, ever escalating scale.
Again, I pray that I'm wrong. But for police the message is clear: Keep your powder dry.
The Virginia Tech killer showed what one determined adult can do. Virginia Tech could have been worse. Imagine what a cell of trained Islamist terrorists could do in a school? In the case of Virginia Tech, police arrived on the seen at Norris Hall within 9 minutes.
(Reports of those on the ground say it was more like 7 minutes.) I don't know how any agency in the world could have done any better, short of having armed men in the building. There is no way on earth they could have done any better, as far as law enforcement response goes.
Remember, it was only after law enforcement arrived that this mass murderer killed himself. How many more could he have killed with an additional 9 minutes? Yet many colleges do not permit their officers to be armed. In such a college any armed response has to come from outside, and would generally take much longer.
The harsh lesson for parents: Do not send your kids to any college where the campus police are not armed. Colleges that are so removed from reality as to refuse to arm certified police officers are negligent and grossly irresponsible. Such colleges do not deserve to have the lives of your children entrusted to their care. Be sure to ask about such matters before you allow your student to attend any college.
A few other key lessons from this that no one can deny:
All schools, from kindergarten to college, must have classrooms with two ways out, even if one of them is a window. On one side of the building where the Virginia Tech massacre occurred, the students could not exit from the windows. This is a case where the fire code and the safety code should have full agreement.
Secondly, all schools must have classrooms that can be secured quickly. Professors and students blocking doors with their bodies are classic cases of heroic efforts to overcome inexcusable negligence in classroom safety. In isolated cases, nationwide, teachers have told me that the local fire marshal objects to this initiative, believing that quick escape in case of a fire is a greater priority. Here is a case where the fire marshal and the fire code may have to compromise, and the police chief should dig his heels in and go toe-to-toe with the fire chief to seek a compromise over this issue. Not one child has died in school fire in all of North America in over a quarter of a century. But entirely too many have died from school violence.
Classrooms have fire sprinklers, fire exits, fire codes, fire alarms and smoke alarms. We need to find a way to provide the same kind of protection from violence. We need a 'safety code' just like the fire code, and the fire professional and the law enforcement professional must to work together to find compromises where there is conflict between these two requirements.
I think this university deserves to be chastised for creating this no-gun zone. "No Gun Zones" should be labeled "Helpless Victim Zones." Once again we see that the killers are looking for a body count, and they carefully choose their target and plan their attack.
Honest citizens obey the law, and killers do not. No sane citizen should send a child to attend such a campus. Sadly, we live in an age in which sane people must declare Cogito, ergo armatum sum: I think, therefore I am armed.
