On the night of Feb. 7, rumors of an active shooter spread to students throughout our campus. The police report that students received came more than an hour after Facebook posts, snapchat stories and tweets had been made about the suspected incident. Students shared posts with each other, telling their friends to stay safe and stay on the lookout. Even students from other universities heard about the rumors and contacted those attending TAMUK before students received any form of communication by the school itself.
Waiting to send any type of notification or alert about a situation regarding a possible shooter in any location on campus is not okay. Students were genuinely scared and concerned awaiting notification from the university about what was happening.
According to tamuk.edu, “In the event of a significant emergency or dangerous situations involving the immediate threat to the health or safety of persons on the campus, the university will, without delay, and taking into account the safety of the community, send mass emergency notification messages to provide information which will give specific directions to the community to help to ensure a safe campus environment.” This did not happen.
Some students might say the night of Feb. 7 would fall under this promise, and we certainly believe it does. There was a suspected shooter on campus, and as we’ve learned from the many mass shootings that this country has tragically faced, the event of a suspected shooter should not be taken lightly.
Not only does the untimely response by the university cause more anxiety among students on campus, but it also resulted in a lack of trust between students and the school.
The first lesson in public relations is to never take too long to respond to a crisis and sadly in an incident that involves a possible shooter, an hour was too long to respond. We have also come to know that students, faculty and staff must manually subscribe their cell phone to the emergency system TAMUK has in place. To add phone numbers or other emails visit https://bbctamuk.bbcportal.com/Contacts. To get notifications from UPD download the Rave Guardian app.