As the Virginia Tech community begins to mourn, questions are already being raised about the manner in which university officials reacted to yesterday’s events:
A single question stood out yesterday at Virginia Tech: Would more students be alive if the university had stopped them from going to class after a shooting occurred in a campus dorm?
The first shooting was reported at 7:15 a.m. in a dormitory, West Ambler Johnston Hall, where police found two people fatally wounded. But the first e-mail message from the Virginia Tech administration to students did not go out until more than two hours later, at 9:26 a.m., stating that a shooting had occurred but with no mention of staying indoors or staying off campus or canceling classes.
About 9:45, the shootings began in Norris Hall, a classroom building at the other end of the sprawling campus. Police said the gunman killed 30 people at Norris and wounded about 30 before killing himself.
“I don’t know why they let people stay in classrooms,” said Sean Glennon, a junior from Centreville and the quarterback on the Hokies football team. “A lot of people are angry that campus wasn’t evacuated a little earlier.”
A legitimite question to say the least, as is the way that campus officials choose to communicate with children as the morning went on:
It was not until 9:50 a.m., after the Norris Hall shootings, that a stronger e-mail warning from the university reached students: “A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows.”
A third e-mail went out at 10:16, canceling classes and asking students to stay put. And it was 10:52, more than an hour after the Norris Hall shootings, that an e-mail went out stating that the attack had occurred.
The problem, of course, is that by the time these emails went out, most students were on the way to class and had no access to email.
It’s easy to second guess someone’s actions the next day, and hard to say if things might have been different if school officials had reacted more quickly, but even if it resulted in only one life being saved, it would’ve been worth it.
Tags: Virginia Tech
