By David Lazzara
School shootings have once again entered the national debate after a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, ended with two students dead and nine others injured.
This has caused some students to have concerns about whether Dominican is prepared for this situation or what the plans are for an active shooting situation. Junior Charlie Jones said, “I’ve never felt truly unsafe at Dominican, but I have no idea what the school has done to prepare for an active shooting event, so that makes me wary.”
The plans for an active shooting situation stem from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) guidance on an active shooting. Sasha Santiago, the director of campus safety, said, “What we really try to do is take the approach of FEMA, which is the active shooter run, hide, fight program.”
This program advises evacuating safely when possible and knowing possible escape routes at any moment while on campus. If that is not achievable, then hiding until it is safe to move around would be the next course of action. When all else fails, the final action would be to engage in a fighting manner. “Our educational initiative, when it comes to an active shooter, is that we are trying to prepare you to be aware of these concepts regardless of where you are at,” said Santiago.
One of the major things that Dominican prioritizes is its cooperation with the River Forest Police Department. When talking about the Campus Safety workers at Dominican, Santiago said, “Since our department is not armed … we will not be functioning as a unit that will neutralize a threat on campus. For that, we have the River Forest Police Department, and we work closely with them on active shooter responses.”
All River Forest Police Officers have the equipment needed while they are patrolling to respond to an active shooting situation if need be. “They will be able to actively respond to an incident… they do not want to have to wait for anybody,” said Santiago. “The minute someone gets to campus, they can engage and try to neutralize that threat.”
However, while plans are in place in case of an active shooter, there have still been concerns about how students will know a situation is happening. Senior Ivan Zuniga said, “We do not really have any alarms here. I feel like there should be an [active shooter] alarm, just like a fire alarm.”
Addressing these concerns, Santiago said, “We would send a mass notice via text, email, and screen grab. So that means all of our university-owned screens… would have a screen takeover and alert that an active shooter is present.”
Moving forward, Dominican is also looking to practice an active shooting drill while school is in session to let students see what a situation could look like. “In the past, we wanted to avoid traumatizing students, but I think there is a lot of value in seeing the system work,” said Santiago.
Many of these plans are accessible to students and faculty; however, it can be hard to find without knowledge of where to look. To find plans on active shootings and other emergencies, Dominican has an Emergency Response and Communication SharePoint. It is only accessible by those who have Dominican University credentials and must be searched for through the SharePoint website. “On the page, you can find anything as it relates to emergency response and communication. We actually have two little active shooter booklets,” said Santiago.
For more information, students and faculty are encouraged to view the Emergency Response and Communication SharePoint and to send questions to safety@dom.edu.
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