This a post from our friend Rob Fraim...
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech – as various news broadcasts have no doubt reminded you. I have received some requests for the piece that I wrote last year, so I’m just going to rerun it today – as we all think back on that horrible day.
Some of you have contacted me over the last 24 hours or so, remembering my proximity to Virginia Tech – my town of Roanoke, Virginia and Blacksburg, Virginia being just about 35 miles apart. Folks were kind enough to ask if I had any family at Tech.
I appreciate the concern. No, my two older kids are out of school now and my youngest is still in high school. So we are all well - as well as any of us who live in this area can be that is. Roanoke and Blacksburg are closely intertwined, with Virginia Tech being the major university in the area and the alma mater of many people here. More important, there are many young people from Roanoke who are Tech students. So while the whole nation was horrified by what was taking place, here in Roanoke it was very personal – since virtually everybody knows someone there.
Yesterday as the news started hitting I called several parents here to see if they had heard from their children. With each call I felt better, as folks told me that they had spoken with their kids and that they were safe.
Then I called my friend Mike, since I knew that his son was an engineering student – a senior – at Tech. He said, “No, I haven’t reached Brian yet. He didn’t pick up his cell phone, but that’s not unusual. I’m sure he’s ok though.” Of course he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t at all sure, and we both knew that.
We watched and read the news together over the phone as more and more details came out. He noted that the first shootings took place in Ambler Johnston Hall and mentioned that he knew where that was – he himself having gone to Virginia Tech back when we were young, back before young people routinely killed each other in random mass attacks. I asked where Brian would likely be and Mike said “Most of the time in Norris Hall. That’s a long way from Ambler Johnston.”
Then, within just a minute or so we both read that it wasn’t just confined to the two shootings at Ambler Johnston. Soon, the words “Norris Hall” and “engineering” started popping up with frequency as the details began to emerge.
Mike got quiet, as did I. Then he said, “I guess I’d better go and try to reach him some more.” He promised to call me as soon as he heard anything.
I only felt a fraction of his fear. A smidgen of his panic. I only got a glimmer, a glimpse of what Mike and many other parents were experiencing yesterday. And it terrified me nonetheless.
Any parent who has ever worried about a child driving home and being later than he should, or watched as she almost toddled into traffic, or felt helpless as he was wheeled away to the operating room, can imagine what Mike and others were enduring yesterday.
I wanted to call somebody. I wanted to watch the news. I knew I should get some work done. But I left the office and walked the two blocks to my home. What I actually wanted was to see my son.
I remembered that he was at home, studying for an afternoon test at the community college where he also takes courses, and it seemed important for me to talk to him. But he wasn’t at the house after all, having decided to study at the college. Now I knew that his school wasn’t Virginia Tech and I knew that he was ok, but I still felt compelled to reach him. I made up an excuse and called him to talk about something that could have easily waited until later – knowing that if I told him that I really just wanted to hold him and hug him and hide him, he’d think the old man had gone nuts.
On my way back to work I stopped in to two little family stores in this quiet neighborhood of ours – Lipes Pharmacy to pick up a prescription and Tinnell’s Grocery for a Diet Coke. While I was in the grocery my cell phone rang and it was my office. My heart froze when they told me that Mike had called and left word for me. He had news of his son.
Brian was fine.
And his dad was fine. And my son was fine. And all’s right with the world.
Well, no. Not really.
Our quiet little neighborhood somehow didn’t seem so quiet, and Tinnell’s and Lipes didn’t feel like Mayberry anymore. Blacksburg and Roanoke are just a half an hour apart, and Blacksburg and Roanoke are forever changed.
I know I’ll never pass a Luby’s restaurant again without being reminded of Killeen, Texas. And now, let’s do a quick word association. I say “Columbine.” Do you say “pretty little purple flower” or does your mind immediately flash to the senseless and evil violence at that school?
Oh, and someone reading this is certain to question my use of the word “evil.” Let me be clear:
E-V-I-L. Or perhaps “wicked” makes my point more plainly to you. Please, please spare me the diatribes about poor little bullied and socially disenfranchised young people acting out in the only way they know how. Evil, wicked, senseless, cowardly, hurtful, despicable, and once again evil I say.
And now, Virginia Tech and Blacksburg will always be known, not as a fine school and a nice town, but instead as the place where evil once again robbed life and hope and promise. 32 people were lost, and another 22,000 or so young people lost their youth, as something wicked their way came.
And here in Roanoke, I’m not sure that things will ever be exactly the same either. You see, even if you don’t know somebody who was hurt or killed, or know their families, this is a small enough community and the degrees of separation close enough that inevitably you will know someone who knows someone who was impacted.
Classes will resume, and life will go on, and kids will learn and study and graduate. People and towns and even schools have remarkable resilience. But let’s not think for even a moment that things haven’t changed.
I’m kind of afraid that people watched the news for a moment yesterday and thought “Oh, another school shooting - what a shame” and then switched to the sports channel or MTV.
We get used to evil and violence and it doesn’t shock us the way it once did. We get hardened to it, and accustomed to it and inured to it, and we come to accept it as routine. And that’s a change that bodes poorly for us all.
“Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today …”
Marvin Gaye – “What’s Goin’ On?”
Rob Fraim
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ANALYSIS OF VA TECH REPORT, TEAM CALLS FOR CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS
The SERAPH Research Team consisting of education and law enforcement experts has assessed “The Virginia Tech Review Panel Report”, http://www.vtreviewpanel.org/report/index.html KEY FINDINGS [Chapter II, pages 17-19]
Note: Starting in 2000 the SERAPH Research Team has at the request of members of Congress supplied three reports on school safety.
SERAPH Virginia Tech Report Assessment
The review panel isolated seven critical problems with Virginia Tech’s emergency response, emergency management and administrators’ response.
The reports’ summary states that, “The Emergency Response Plan of Virginia Tech was deficient in several respects”. The following is a list of each issue and the SERAPH response.
1. “It did not include provisions for a shooting scenario.”
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 schools.
However our survey of colleges and universities security directors and police chiefs shows that few have had this training. Two reasons were given for this, the first was the cost, administrators did not want to pay for the training and second administrators barred campus security / police administrators from seeking out the training because they did not want a “militaristic campus atmosphere”.
2. “…did not place police high enough in the emergency decision-making hierarchy. The police had to await the deliberations of the Policy Group, of which they are not a member, even when minutes count.”
The report indicates that administrators who had no training in security or police operations micromanaged the security operations of the campus. This is problematic because of the obvious delay it causes in response time and the fact that under Virginia law it is illegal.
Virginia criminal code 18.2-460 A, Obstructing justice: If any person without just cause knowingly obstructs a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness or any law-enforcement officer in the performance of his duties as such or fails or refuses without just cause to cease such obstruction when requested to do so by such judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, or law-enforcement officer, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
The Policy Group as it relates to police operations on campus is in violation of this law. And from the report it is equally obvious that on the day of the shooting the administrators obstructed the police in their investigation of the original dorm murder and their response to managing the campus with a murder suspect on the loose.
3. “It also did not include a threat assessment team.”
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 is seriously 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.
4. “The Emergency Response Plan… was out of date on April 16”
An emergency plan is only as good as the data in it and the ability of key personnel to use it effectively. This did not happen at Virginia Tech.
5. “The training of staff and students for emergencies situations at Virginia Tech did not include shooting incidents.”
Training is important for the effective management of an emergency by key personnel. You cannot ask untrained people to do what trained people do.
6. “No security cameras were in the dorms or anywhere else on campus on April 16.”
A lack of systematic monitoring of a campus contributes to crime.
7. “A risk analysis needs to be performed and decisions made as to what risks to protect against.”
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. Two reasons for this refusal is the fear of liability exposure and the chance that the audit would require changes in management systems.
The Review Panel ironically found,
“That the VTPD statement of purpose in the Emergency Response Plan does not reflect that law enforcement is the primary purpose of the police department.” Again the report indicates that university administrators who had no training in security or police operations micromanaged the security operations of the campus through policies that control the actions of the campus police force.
Lastly, the report found that this attitude was consistent throughout the Virginia college and university community.
“It was the strong opinion of groups of Virginia college and university presidents with whom the panel met that the state should not impose required levels of security on all institutions, but rather let the institutions choose what they think is appropriate. Parents and students can and do consider security a factor in making a choice of where to go to school.”
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