School shooting: Got safety?

By Alex Gasick, The Lewis University Flyer

April 20, 1999, was not only a tragic day but was also a watershed day regarding safety in schools and on college campuses across the country.

This was the day two high school seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 13 people and wounded 23 others, before taking their own lives, at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, CO.

The Columbine shooting has been followed by recent tragedies on the campuses of Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois. On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded many others. This massacre was the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history, on or off a school campus. At Northern Illinois, Steven Kazmierczak shot 24 people total and killed six of them on Feb. 14, 2008.

Because of these incidences, people have debated on everything from laws on gun control, to preventing bullying in schools and even to limiting video games that feature violence. Schools can only do so much to prevent tragedies like Columbine or Virginia Tech from occurring. Schools can and should offer advice on how to react if something tragic is to take place.

Lewis did just that and gave students, faculty and staff the opportunity to learn about campus safety awareness this past week through a two hour presentation which featured members of the Romeoville Police Department. Lewis offered this presentation at four different times in the Sancta Alberta Chapel. The presentation began with a video titled “Shots Fired on Campus.” This video went through various situations a person could face in a campus shooting, and then described what one should do in these different scenarios. The video acted as a prelude to the presentation given by Officer Brian Truhler and Sergeant Robert Fetzer of the Romeoville Police Department.

Not only did Truhler and Fetzer expand on the information in the video, they also explained how police officers have been trained differently since Columbine. “Before the Columbine shooting took place, police officers were not trained to go in and stop a shooting like Columbine,” Truhler explained. “The SWAT team would be called to take care of the situation, and Police Officers would just guard the perimeters.”

This means that during Columbine, no police officers were trained to enter into the school and stop the shooters. After Columbine, all police officers began to be trained to stop a shooter in this kind of situation. “We have actually simulated active shootings at local schools and offices,” Fetzer said. “Recently, we did this at Plainfield North High School.”

Truhler has gained confidence through these simulations, which also include other local police departments. “At the simulations, everyone from all different police departments seem to know exactly what they are doing,” Truhler said. “You can tell every police department thoroughly teaches the same thing.”

Fetzer and Truhler both agree that presentations on campus safety awareness could be very helpful if an actual emergency came about. “If people know how to react in an emergency, it will only help officers identify who is and isn’t a threat in the building,” Fetzer said. “Therefore, we’ll be able to get to the shooter quicker and get others out safely.”

Fetzer also gave advice on how to be better prepared if a shooting ever occurred. “Locate possible exits and cover positions when you walk into a room,” he said. “You don’t need to be paranoid about something like this every second, but just taking a second to locate these places could make all the difference.”

The vast majority of the attendees at these presentations were members of the faculty and staff. Some people acknowledged that the recent shootings on college campuses impacted them to attend. Gretchen Snape, who works in admissions, is one of these people. “I would have been less likely to attend [the presentation] if the shootings never happened,” Snape said. “The shootings actually happening make it seem like it could happen anywhere.” Because of this, Snape would like some version of campus safety awareness to be required for all students. “There was a lot of eye-opening information in this presentation,” she said. “Knowing this [information] could really help in an emergency.”

John Dalby, who is the Chief Information Technology Officer at Lewis, also was not thrilled in the lack of student attendance. “I would like to have seen better attendance,” Dalby said. “People tend to be complacent.” Unlike Snape, Dalby said recent campus shootings did not impact his decision to attend the presentation. “I would be here anyways. I came to be prepared and to better understand what to do in an emergency.”

It’s true that school shootings are thankfully not all that common, and hopefully none of us at Lewis will ever have to deal with something so tragic; however, that does not mean you should not educate yourself on what to do if something like that were to ever happen. When students of Columbine High School went to school on April 20, 1999, they were not, in their wildest dreams, expecting what took place that day. The same can be said for students at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois. Students at Lewis should make an effort to be prepared in the case of a tragic situation. It could end up saving a life.