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Sara AA Hood
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Editorial Board
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2007-08-24
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<i>Our View is prepared by the Editorial Board which operates independently from the newsroom.</i>
By The Editorial Board
On April 20, 1999, the United States watched in horror as the shootings at Columbine High School unfolded and sparked a series of high school violence that has ensued in the years after. As the shock of the initial shooting subsided, educators and students across the country scrambled to both understand and prepare themselves for this new and horrifying threat in American education.
In the wake of last week's tragedy at Virginia Tech we can relate the emotion and logic of our response to Columbine
as we struggle with the processes of grieving, understanding and preparing ourselves to trudge forward.
While we will never entirely understand Seung-Hui Cho's motivation, feelings of anguish flood our mind as we try to comprehend the progression of his deadly thought-process. Although it is extremely difficult to find comfort following the deaths of so many, we can see as we did eight years ago that perhaps our best tools in the grieving process are overcoming and preparing as best we can for such events.
Key to our understanding of these tragedies, is our attention to their most obvious similarities. The gunmen of Columbine, Virginia Tech and other schools across the country all felt they were waging a personal war with the world.
While we are angry at them for their actions, if we can set aside those emotions and view them as victims of psychological disorders and an increasingly impersonal society, we can better grasp what led to these horrors.
In doing such, we form a deep respect for our individual ability to prevent these atrocities by consciously guiding ourselves in being more aware, respectful and interactive with people we see on a daily basis. Our generation and the generations
that will follow, live in a world where technological advancements allow us to move so rapidly that we can leave individuals behind and not even notice.
While preventing these events must be our priority, we must also prepare for our reaction if they occur. Here at UMD for example, we can install locks on our classroom doors, public address systems, electronic command stations, etc. We can also publish lock-down procedures and ensure every campus community member knows what to do if anything were to happen.
As we grieve for the victims of Virginia Tech, let us also move forward by devoting our individual and collective selves to preventing and preparing for a similar disaster. The most effective tool in ensuring our health and safety, which should be our number one priority, is not any piece of technology. Rather, it is our own attention to the people in the world around us.
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Karin Gelschus ~ Content Editor
Joshua Newville ~ Editorial Writer
Anna Woodwick ~ New Writers Editor
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.d.umn.edu/statesman/editorial/ourView.html>The Statesman - April 26, 2007</a>
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eng
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Statesman Editor-in-Chief Desk - Suraj Rambhia <eic@sbstatesman.org>
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THE STATESMAN: Our View
university of minnesota - duluth
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Document
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Sara AA Hood
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Joel Runck
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2007-08-24
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By Joel Runck
Statesman Staff Reporter
In light of the massacre at Virginia Tech on April 16, security protocols are being reevaluated and modified at campuses nationwide.
UMD is also devising and implementing measures to improve security and emergency response.
"I would say that the most effective means of notification that we have—and we've just installed this in the last six months— is our tone-alert radios," said Greg Fox, UMD vice chancellor of finance and operations. "Most frequently they would be used for weather emergencies, but they are also available for live-time communication for other emergencies as well."
With 60 such radios distributed across major departments at UMD, locations in possession of tone-alert radios can correspond with agencies such as law enforcement and the National Weather Service during specific types of emergencies.
"It's kind of the same philosophy as the old weather radios," said Joe Michela, director of UMD Auxiliary Services. "Now we have them around campus, but we have own antenna and receiver ... so that's how we get the message out to warn (people)."
Michela said that during a gunman-at-large scenario, the radios would be used to notify campus police who would then notify Duluth police departments across the city. The most recent use of these radios other than monthly testing, occurred during the snowstorm closing in March.
Currently, UMD has 10 licensed police officers on payroll and after massacre at Virginia Tech occurred, that same night, two officers were stationed throughout residence halls, according to Fox. In addition to police presence, Fox said that UMD has more than 100 surveillance cameras, which are primarily located in residence hall parking lots.
Furthermore, Fox speculates that UMD will be receiving $300,000 from the U of M -Twin Cities Central Security to install cameras that will monitor people entering and exiting residence hall buildings.
Other buildings under video surveillance include Swenson Science, the Sports and Health Center and the library.
While deterrence is one measure, communicating during an emergency situation is quite another.
On the day of the massacre at Virginia Tech, two individuals were gunned-down in a dormitory around 7:15 a.m. More than two hours later, 30 more people were killed in classrooms at Norris Hall, about a half-mile away on Tech's campus, according to the Associated Press. Tech sent out the first e-mail warning in regard to the first shooting at approximately 9:36 a.m.
"E-mail was never intended to be a form of emergency communication," said Susan Latto, director of UMD Public Relations.
On April 18, a bomb threat occurred at the U of M-Twin Cities campus, which resulted in the evacuations of several campus buildings. Latto, who has received training in emergency and crisis communication by both the State of Minnesota and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that UMD strives to have efficient response systems in place
"It's like buying car insurance," Latto said. "You always hope that you will never get in an accident just because you have insurance."
Certain students have not changed their behavior patterns since the Virginia Tech incident and feel a strong presence of security on-campus.
"I spend most of my time in the Swenson building in the research wing," said fifth-year student Nate Bruender. "To get back there, you have to go through an alarm door with this video camera, so for me, it's not much of a worry."
Other students echoed Bruender's response and feel secure at UMD.
"I feel like the campus is pretty close-knit and so I don't have to go outside a lot," said freshman Grace Johnson. "I feel pretty safe in that way because a lot of doors are locked—especially at night."
Both Fox and Latto said that students can do their part by reporting any suspicious behavior to authorities.
"Don't be nervous about calling 911," Fox said. "(Authorities) want that call if there is a reason that you think your safety is impaired."
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.d.umn.edu/statesman/headlines/security.html>The Statesman - April 26, 2007</a>
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eng
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Statesman Editor-in-Chief Desk - Suraj Rambhia <eic@sbstatesman.org>
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Security discussions arise after shootings
university of minnesota - duluth
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Document
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Sara AA Hood
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Lisa Kunkel
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2007-08-24
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By Lisa Kunkel
Statesman Staff Reporter
Horrific school shootings such as the Virginia Tech massacre leave people wondering what can possibly drive an individual to such extreme measures.
Seung-Hui Cho took the lives of 33 people including himself at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va. Initially, "investigators offered no motive for the attack," read the article on Yahoo! News the day of the shooting, titled "Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage."
Witnesses said Cho shamelessly opened fire as if he had no victims in mind, leaving the event to appear to be a random act of violence.
"It's hard to say what was random and what wasn't," said professor Emily Gaarder, of UMD's Department of Sociology/Anthropology.
Monday's shooting reminds us of another tragic event that occurred eight years ago in Littleton, Col., where two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold,
killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives at Columbine High School.
Prior to Virginia Tech, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 in Austin at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th floor observation deck killing 16 people before he was gunned down by police, according to MSNBC.
These tragic events, along with many others, leave many boggled with one main question: What brings young people like Cho, Harris, Klebold and Whitman to commit such horrendous acts of violence?
Cho chose to tell the world his motive in a shocking yet disturbing videotape mailed to NBC news network the day of the shooting.
"You had a 100 billion chances and ways to have avoided today," Cho said in the footage. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."
Though there is no motive that could ever make such a horrendous act acceptable, Cho's disturbing message does help to clarify what was going through his mind.
In the case of Columbine, investigators worked to find the killers' drive for a long time.
After years of research on the case, the FBI and its team have come to the conclusion that "the school served as means to a grander end, to terrorize the entire nation by attacking a symbol of American life," according to an article at slate.msn.com.
AP PHOTO
Student Gatane Gallagher, 19, cries at a
memorial on Virginia Tech's drill field.
Gaarder noticed that the cases at Columbine and other schools often followed a stereotypical trend where the perpetrator was an outcast who was bullied. However, these mass murderers can often be clinically labeled "psychopaths."
"Because of their inability to appreciate the feeling of others, some psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling," wrote Dr. Robert Hare, in "Without Conscious," a book about the disorder. "For example, they can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner."
Gaarder also noted that it is typically men who are involved in these situations.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice note that "males represent 77 percent of homicide victims and nearly 90 percent of offenders," and "approximately one-third of murder victims and almost half the offenders are under the age of 25."
AP PHOTO
Student Gatane Gallagher, 19, cries at a
memorial on Virginia Tech's drill field
Gaarder said random acts of violence happen everyday to and from all sorts of people and that there might be ways to help prevent these acts.
"Maybe one thing we could do is teach the emotional skills as well as intellectual skills to students," Gaarder said.
Gaarder felt that people should come together to discuss what can be done to keep UMD safe aside from gun control and increased security.
"It would be a good conversation for students and faculty to have together," Gaarder said. "Students are at the frontline of people who could help bring attention to this."
Sociology/Anthropology Professor Robert Weidner teaches his students daily about crime and the media.
"From a criminology standpoint, you can't study it," Weidner said. "The hindsight of it is 20:20."
Weidner said that high school shootings are very rare events and college are even more rare.
"School is the safest place to be," Weidner said.
Less than 7 percent of all crimes occur in school, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice.
"Violent victimization is 20 percent lower among college students compared to non-college 18-24 year olds," Weidner
said.
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Original source:<a href=
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eng
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The Statesman
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Statesman Editor-in-Chief Desk - Suraj Rambhia <eic@sbstatesman.org>
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Country mourns and questions campus killings
university of minnesota - duluth