Report Says Virginia Tech's Slow Response to Shootings Violated Law

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The SERAPH Research Team, consisting of education and law enforcement experts, has discovered five reasons for unsafe college campuses.
The SERAPH Research Team provides a bi-yearly school-safety report for Congress and in 2006 prepared an assessment of the “The Virginia Tech Review Panel Report”.
In its analysis of security concerns at colleges and universities across the country, SERAPH has determined:
1. Since the Columbine massacre in 1999, police departments across the United States have been training in “active shooter” response. This has been a well-established practice for use in public [K-12] schools.
However, our survey of college and university security directors and police chiefs shows that few have had this training. Two reasons were given: Administrators often do not want to pay for the training or in some cases bar campus security/police from participating in training to avoid what they perceived to be a "militaristic campus atmosphere”.
2. College administrators have no training in security or police operations and as a result micromanage security operations on their campuses. This is problematic because of the obvious delay it causes in response time. In addition, when a college or university has a police department, administrative micromanagement can violate state law regarding obstruction of justice.
3. A proper security audit is vitally important to campus security. However, our survey of security directors / police chiefs indicates that most college administrators will not allow these assessments to be done out of fear of liability exposure and the chance the audit would require changes in management systems.
4. Threat assessment as a science has existed in the United States since the early 1940s. Predication and prevention of violence is a critical aspect of campus security and one that, in SERAPH’s experience, seriously is lacking on higher-education campuses. All Resident Assistants, security / police and department administrators should be trained to identify violent behavior in students, staff and visitors.
A lack of systematic monitoring of people on campus contributes to crime.
5. An emergency plan is only as good as the data in it and the ability of key personnel to use it effectively.
Training is important for the effective management of an emergency by key personnel. You cannot ask untrained people to do what trained people do.
SERAPH http://www.scribd.com/doc/14386009/ANALYSIS-OF-VA-TECH-REPORT-TEAM-CALLS-FOR-CRIMINAL-CHARGES-AGAINST-UNIVERSITY-ADMINISTRATORS

Laura Collins of PA 8:30AM May 22, 2010

Um, they're not talking about the rebuttal.. lolz.
The report is claiming that VT did not respond fast enough on the day of the emergency, and on that, I haven't really an opinion. I mean, I heard about it and still went to class--I assumed the emergency was over. Perhaps, knowing that he was on the loose would have been helpful; I don't remember if that information was made explicit. I'm not sure why he didn't get chased down after the first incident--where was everyone as these multiple gun shots went off? eh?

Anon of VA 3:52PM May 20, 2010

In beaurocratic government terms 5 months is a "swift rebuttle." consider the fact that it took the Dept. of Education three years to issue the report in the first place. I was a student at VT when the shooting happened and I am now getting my masters so I can work with students at universities and I can tell you that it would easily take 5 months for a 73 page response to be prepared and carefully reviewed by the people in charge. Obviously they knew that every word in the response would be analyzed so it's not the kind of thing you can turn out in a weekend. In addition, the administrators still had their regular jobs to do. VT had a really tough year financially last year and many administrators were already doing multiple jobs due to hiring freezes, so please don't make it seem like the delay was just because they were sitiing on their butts thinking about when the best time politically to release it would be.

Kate of VA 7:37AM May 20, 2010

Thanks for posting this, although I dispute that there was a "swift rebuttal by the school." In fact, the school received the report months ago and held on to it for every possible day it could (until after graduation, I might add) before making the report -- and the school's response -- public.

Evan Brightyl of VA 8:42PM May 19, 2010