Are we ready for a school shooting?

On April 16, 2007, the single-most deadly shooting in the U.S. occurred on the Virginia Tech campus, leaving 27 students, five professors and the shooter dead.

More than two years later, LSU and several other universities have been assembling response plans officials hope they never have to use.

Active shootings typically last for fewer than two minutes, giving the University a tiny

window of opportunity to respond, communicate and advise, said Lawrence Rabalais, LSU Police Department Chief.

"We've taken practical measures since Virgina Tech, since Northern Illinois, trying to understand why these things happen and trying to see what we can do as a police department, as a University, to keep these things from happening," Rabalais said.

Virginia Tech, the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 and the Northern Illinois

University shooting in February 2008, have provided the University with a blueprint for preparedness, Rabalais said.

"I spoke to the [Virginia Tech police chief] myself," Rabalais said. "There were signs that they recognized and saw after the fact."

LESSONS FROM HISTORY

LSUPD has taken actions to prevent a similar situation on the home front and making preparations to avoid the same mistakes.

"Virginia Tech was really what opened everybody's eyes," Rabalais said. "Columbine did to an extent, but Virginia Tech is when everybody said, ‘You know what? This is going to be real.' That really got the ball rolling."

LSUPD started to train with local, city and state law enforcement offices, including training sessions on how to respond to active shooters, Rabalais said. While LSUPD's response plan is "very simple," he said training together helps the units coordinate police response.

"There won't be any one response from LSU police — there will be assistance coming in from other agencies," Rabalais said. "Other agencies responding know exactly when

they're going to get there."

Nine officers trained in special weapons and tactics form LSUPD's high-risk warrants team, recently established to respond to any gunmen threats. Patrol officers still receive training for ways to handle similar situations, Rabalais said.

During the Columbine shooting, local patrol officers waited for a response from SWAT team members rather than immediately acting, Rabalais said. University response plans involve patrolmen going directly to the scene rather than waiting for the SWAT team, which

Rabalais said could take up to two hours to prepare for response.

Rabalais said breaching issues came into play during the Virginia Tech shooting because law enforcement officers could not get into the classroom doors, which had been chained from the inside. To handle similar situations, LSUPD patrol officers are prepared to breach buildings and classrooms with special kits with which LSUPD cars are now equipped — or by actually using the police cars to break down doors.

"We're a city within a city — at any given time, we have 50,000 people on campus," Rabalais said. "Our goal as an administration is to equip these patrol officers with whatever they need to do their job. If [the equipment] looks intimidating, it's probably because it is."

EOC COMMUNICATIONS

The Emergency Operations Center is responsible for providing communications and resources necessary for law enforcement officers, said EOC Interim Director D'Ann Morris.

The center is the brainchild of Sean O'Keefe, the University's chancellor from 2005 to 2008. LSU was the only university in the country with a dedicated facility when the EOC was first implemented, Morris said.

The EOC utilizes five forms of media to communicate with the University community — emergency text messages, broadcast e-mails, the University's Web site, broadcast voicemail and media releases.

"Obviously, we're going to do our best to communicate [the situation], and we're going to be blasted after the fact when everyone says that we didn't send a text message fast enough, and the broadcast e-mail didn't come out, and the media release was wrong," Morris said. "Flat out — it wouldn't matter if I was in the room with the active shooter, pushing the button to send out the text message; it's not going to be fast enough."

Most recently, Information Technology Services tested the LSU Emergency Text Messaging System on Sept. 28. Once ITS sent the text message to FirstCall, the

University's emergency text messaging provider, it was distributed in 12 minutes — plenty of time for a gunman to cause widespread damage.

But Morris said the EOC doesn't utilize the emergency text messaging service solely to distribute information — it's used to either give subscribers specific instructions or to indicate immediate threat.

"It's very specific as to what we want individuals to do," Morris said. "We don't need 2,000 people running over to Tureaud Hall to stand outside and watch."

Rabalais, also a member of the EOC core committee, said the EOC allows law enforcement officers to continue investigations without having to worry about communications.

"In those situations, what would you rather?" Rabalais questioned. "Me getting information out in a timely manner that is not quite accurate or waiting another minute or two so you can provide the public with the appropriate response? That's why it's so important, the EOC being activated. They're just standing there waiting for information."

CARE TEAM

Eric Norman, associate dean of Student Advocacy and Accountability, came to the University in July 2006 directly from Virginia Tech, intent on establishing a group focused on aiding distressed students.