VA Tech

kellylen · Post by **kellylen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:36 pm

according to my friend the shooter was an english major who had disturbing creative writing and was referred to the counselors on campus.

he also left a note in his dorm saying he didnt like stuck up people or rich kids or pretentious people. which according to my friend would make sense why he killed the girl in the dorm and then the RA when the RA stepped in.

Killthesmiley · Post by **Killthesmiley** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:00 pm

evacuation is probably unrealistic honestly at VTech...however the number you quoted of students is a little off. That is the number of students that attend. The number that live n campus are 9000 and the number that are on campus at one time is approx 10,000.
Evac is probably unrealistic, how ever there are so many messures that they could have used.
the dorms were lock through specific key cards. only people with the appropriate Key cards can get in. These systems can be activated to not let ANY key allowed in, exept for a specific Key that the police hold. This could be initiated during their lock down process. Also certain systems allow to for the doors not to be able to open at all until a code is entered. This specific system was used at my former college. It was efficient and we drilled a lock down situation every other month.
Also effecient locks on the doors would have helped. As stated by student witnesses, there are no locks on the classroom doors, they needed to use tables and chairs to block the doors. While, even when the locks are locked, I would recommend them to barracade themselves like this, Locks would have slowed the gunner down, which by the looks of things, he didn't want, so he would have just turns away and went on to the next room.

These things do not cost that much for a university. Plus if they already have the keycard system in place for the dormitories, I'm surprised that they didn't activate the security mesures they could have done. They didn't cancel classes, they didn't lock down. Point blank, the should have. It was an irresponsible decision that the dean and sheriff made, and they should be reviewed for it.

martha · Post by **martha** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:15 pm

I'm not talking about dorms, I'm talking about classrooms, because dorms do have much more security than classrooms. My freshman year, there was a serial rapist around town, and they started using the key cards at all the dorms. So sure, there's plenty of things they can do for dorms, but what about classrooms? Is it realistic to have key cards for the other buildings on campus? Locks are a good idea, but then again, you can't very well lock the door once class has started, can you? That would probably be a fire hazard. You can sure as hell bet that now it's happened, colleges are going to be adding additional safety measures in dorms and in classrooms, which is what I meant by the hindsight comment. As far as 28,000, I meant that a school that large should have campus police.

kellylen · Post by **kellylen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:24 pm

Kelly they locked down the dorm where the shooting first occured.

Killthesmiley · Post by **Killthesmiley** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:32 pm

kellylen wrote:Kelly they locked down the dorm where the shooting first occured.

I know VTech is a huge campus, But I personally think that they should have put a lock down on the entire campus. Would have helps tremendously.

Martha, I get what your aying. The drill we used however went like this:

The doors to the ooutside were immediately locked down. No one could get in, no one can get out. The two offices (Main and library) had the ability to do this. The shop garage doors were also locks down. An alarm would then be sounded. This was done througha secure phone number that a teacher could call to sound the alarm. This alarm signaled for the instructors/ people in the room to lock the doors, and people in the halls to get into the nearest class room. People would then would have the responsiblity to a) figure a way to make the doors more secure until the alarm was shut down and police called into the classrooms b) find their way out of the windows to the safety outside.

that is simple system that is quite easily put into action. I've seen it drilled in both small colleges and high traffic universities. All student council members were trained in the procedure as well as teachers.

edt: i heard they did, but maybe I was wrong on that. They definately should have a student police. I find it surprising that they don't

martha · Post by **martha** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:43 pm

I heard last night they didn't. But, I just read they did, so I'm probably wrong.

I'm sure they're going to be implementing things like this all over the place now. They also need to find a better way to communicate with the students. Email isn't an option for everyone. Neither is the radio. Some sort of reverse 911 system would work, but I'm not sure how feasible that is, since I'm sure there is a substantial amount of students who don't live in town.

consideration · Post by **consideration** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:10 pm

I really hope that everything is okay with Loretta. I'm worried.

longlostposter · Post by **longlostposter** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:10 pm

martha wrote:
longlostposter wrote:Martha, how about police barricades? Wouldn't that have kept students coming in out?

We aren't really communicating here. There is no excuse for what happened, in my book.
\Where would they have put the barricades? Would they have just barricaded the whole campus? That doesn't sound realistic to me. I imagine they thought it was an isolated incident, and that he wasn't going to kill 30 more people.

Why assume that? When there is a killer on the loose, you don't just say, "Oh, that was only one, let's not do anything to protect others in the area". Is someone in your family a cop or something?

longlostposter · Post by **longlostposter** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:20 pm

Me too, consideration. She knows we are waiting for word, and the fact that she hasn't come here worries me terribly. I think if there had been good news, she would have jumped on here right away.

It's not looking good at all, but I'm trying to stay positive.

martha · Post by **martha** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:44 pm

longlostposter wrote:
martha wrote:
longlostposter wrote:Martha, how about police barricades? Wouldn't that have kept students coming in out?

We aren't really communicating here. There is no excuse for what happened, in my book.
\Where would they have put the barricades? Would they have just barricaded the whole campus? That doesn't sound realistic to me. I imagine they thought it was an isolated incident, and that he wasn't going to kill 30 more people.
Why assume that? When there is a killer on the loose, you don't just say, "Oh, that was only one, let's not do anything to protect others in the area". Is someone in your family a cop or something?

I am not going to argue with you, because it seems like that's what you're intent on doing, and it seems that having a mature conversation with you isn't going to happen right now.

consideration · Post by **consideration** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:48 pm

martha wrote:I am not going to argue with you, because it seems like that's what you're intent on doing, and it seems that having a mature conversation with you isn't going to happen right now.

Whoa. Let's be nice. This isn't about who's right or wrong. This is about a terrible tragedy that has happened to Virginia Tech and possibly a member of this forum. Please don't undermine this by squabbling.

martha · Post by **martha** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:12 pm

You're right, consideration. My apologies to JustAnotherLonelyGirl.

Marilee · Post by **Marilee** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:24 pm

I go to school about 2 hours away from tech and it has been a really hard two days. So many of us know friends there. It's really just been a time of calling and finding people.

I really hope this thread doesn't become a ranting place about politics. What happened is a horrible horrible tragedy and it is not made better by placing blame on anyone but the shooter. I know from experience that I don't always check my email before leaving for my 8am... it may not have stopped people. but tech did use an RA phone tree and all the procedures they had. It is really a shame when schools need to even think of a plan for something like this.

My prayers and love to everyone on the boards who has family/friends at tech.

Sami · Post by **Sami** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:39 pm

it is not made better by placing blame on anyone but the shooter.

There are many to blame for this

JustAnotherLonelyGirl. · Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:18 pm

Hey everyone - sorry I haven't updated today - I was kind of busy.
It turns out that my cousin is okay - physically. We were all excited to hear that.
Unfortunately, he hasn't been doing so great emotionally. One of his teachers and four of his best friends were killed. They didn't even know the boy who shot them. He won't talk to anyone right now except another friend of his from school who was also in his group of friends.
It hasn't been an easy two days for my family and me, and I want you all to know how much it means to me that you kept my cousin in your thoughts and prayers. I'm not a religious person myself, but I am so grateful that you did all you could to help my family.

btw, of course, I don't mind if anyone calls me Loretta.