from the mom
Apart from the pure human tragedy at Virginia Tech, I have done some thinking about what it would be like to walk in the shoes of an administrator at VTech. I am glad I don't have to do it. The blame game is inherent to American culture--one of the great findings in my Humanities education. Americans don't really believe in unavoidable accidents--whether it is a killer on the rampage, car accidents, or Hurricane Katrina. Blaming will not bring back the lives of these 32 individuals.
That said, I cannot for the life of me think what valid reason administrators had for waiting more than 2 hours after two deaths in a resident hall before they let students on campus know (via email). An initial email with basic information should have been sent within 15 or 20 minutes. That might have resulted in someone who saw something realizing that what they saw was amiss and contacting the authorities. There is the possibility that the killer was seeking attention, wanted to be caught, and when he saw the email realized he wasn't identified, and proceeded on to further carnage. However, that can't be known. While calling for the resignations of the college president is a bit over the top, future procedures should call for immediate communication when security is breached.
1 comment:
Hmm, I've been thinking about this a lot too. On the one hand, I agree with what you're saying - surely something might have been done about informing people sooner. On the other hand again, there's no way that we can apply our current hindsight to the situation and see how handling it differently might have changed the outcome. How is a random shooting usually handled? By calling the police, which they did.
I remember during the attacks on the WTC, we were all in rather a daze at first: it just didn't quite sink in when the first tower fell, and we certainly weren't expecting another plane to come along. I can understand a reluctance to issue even a general statement until something more of the facts were grasped. Perhaps they were even waiting until the families of the initial victims could be contacted?
I don't know enough of the sequence of events for this to be anything more than speculation, of course. Certainly this would be the time for all kinds of institutions to double-check their disaster procedure policy.
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