School Shooting Response www.PersonalSecurity.TV

Now to the Virginia Tech shootings. The worst shooting on U.S. soil ever has happened today. 32 people killed. The gunman makes it 33. And on MyFox Boston, our bloggers are reacting to this tragedy. Renee in Boston online blogging saying, after today's massacre in Virginia, I think that we're not safe because to many people it won't happen to their schools and they don't have tight security and anyone can walk in and wreak havoc. Today was a wake-up call. For all campuses. Calciana blogging today saying, not to sound paranoid, but are we really safe anywhere anymore? Every day we're hearing more and more reports of shootings, stabbings, rapes, weapons. Not just colleges. These incidents are occurring on a daily basis in high schools and middle schools. People can't even walk down the street without shootings and stabbings occurring. Where are we safe anymore? Those are some thoughts coming in on myfoxboston.com. You can go there and share your reaction with us as well. David?

Alright, Bianca, thank you. We want to talk a little bit more about these security issues that have come up with this, this massive shooting at Virginia Tech. Joining us now is Robert Siciliano, a security expert with Street Safe Security. Robert, thank you so much for being with us this afternoon. The big question of this day from some of the students that go to Virginia Tech is, what in the world were the university officials thinking in sending out an email 2 hours after the first fatal shooting? The school has come out to say Well, we thought it was a domestic situation and that's why we didn't want to alert everybody. What's your take on that?

Well, keep in mind that 2 hours goes by really quick and the initial murder scene needed to be investigated. They had to determine just in fact what happened. And at that time, I'm sure they had no idea that, that a massive school shooting was about to occur. So alerting the students a couple of hours later to that initial incident makes sense once they've investigated it. But again, they didn't want to cause undue panic to evacuate the facility because they didn't really know that there was a, you know, a massive murder going to be taking place shortly afterwards.

My only question with that is they said that they thought this first shooting at 7:15 AM at the dormitory, that they thought that was a domestic issue. Still, they did not have the shooter apprehended at that point. They said they thought the shooter may have left campus, but they didn't know that the shooter left campus. Right. With that said, Wouldn't there be an email out immediately? Or perhaps, and maybe this doesn't exist on campus, but some type of an alarm should go off to let kids know that not only has there been a shooting, but we do not have the shooter as of yet, so stay inside until we find him.

Well, generally with these types of situations, uh, there's always a crisis response strategy, and depending on the institution depends on what their response may be. First thing they do is they call 911, they alert the authorities. Next thing they do, they determine if there is any imminent danger to the rest of the facility. And if in fact they were to determine that, they would then go ahead and evacuate everybody involved.

I have a lot of questions for you because there are people at home now who say, hey, I have a kid who goes to school and I want to know if my kid is safe at their particular school. I have a few more questions for you. I'm hoping you can stick around for the, for the 5:30 newscast as well. That is Robert Siciliano, a security expert with Street Safe Security. He's going to join us again in a few minutes. Bianca?

Alright, David, and as you just said, we are staying on top of this developing story ahead of 5:30. Well, the latest is police at Virginia Tech work to learn more about this unidentified shooter and his possible motive.

Alright, thank you, AJ Moore. Now on our top story, gunman opening fire at Virginia Tech, killing at least 32 people before committing suicide. Joining us again to talk more about school security is Robert Siciliano, a security expert with Street Safe Security. Robert, thanks for joining us again. Earlier you were telling us that you can somewhat see what school officials were thinking in having such a long delay before notifying students about the very first shooting at a dormitory. Talk a little bit more about that because you really don't think that they were in the wrong here too much.

Well, after a couple hours they had notified the students that there had been an issue on campus. The shooter was not there, so they did not see that there was an immediate danger. So there wasn't any need to locked down right there and then because they figured that the shooter left the campus. And then in response, obviously, that wasn't the case.

In retrospect, of course, it, uh, it all plays out in such a horrible way. Let's talk overall, generically, about school safety at colleges, because we've talked so much about elementary schools, high schools. I imagine keeping a campus secure has to have a whole host of obstacles.

The problem there is there's so many different buildings, there's so many means of aggress— You know, one building could have half a dozen different entrances, and to secure those facilities would require, you know, armed guards at each entrance with metal detectors. And educational institutions are meant to be open. It's meant to be there for learning. It's not supposed to be like a lockdown court or a federal building.

So I imagine your answer to "Are our college campuses safe?" The answer is probably not really.

Probably no. I mean, unless you actually had armed guards at every entrance, they're going to always be at risk. They're always going to be considered what's called the soft target, and soft targets are becoming the path of least resistance for these predators.

All right, Robert Siciliano from Street Safe Security, we thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. You had really great insight on this story. Bianca, to you.

Gentlemen, thank you. And there's much more ahead tonight at 5:30, including your answers to our feedback question, reacting to to the worst shooting on US soil at Virginia Tech today. Stay with us.