Virginia Tech communicates swiftly after shooting
The university’s campus alert system immediately warned students of the imminent danger and communicators had their message for the public ready.
For a university, nothing fits the definition of a crisis more aptly than a campus shooting. On Thursday, Virginia Tech faced its second such shooting in five years. Officials were ready for it.
According to The Washington Post, a message stating, “Stay indoors. Secure in place,” was sent to students promptly after a campus police officer was shot during a routine traffic stop. That officer was killed, along with a person found in a parking lot into which the shooter fled.
A second alert describing the shooter went out soon after.
The messages were delivered by email, text message, robocall, online message boards in classrooms and campus alarms via the university’s alert system. That response was markedly faster than in 2007, when Seung Hui Cho killed 33 on Virginia Tech’s campus. It took two hours for the first emails to go out after that shooting.
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