Any one of which could have become the scene of a mass shooting had classes been cancelled after the first incident. Which, of course, would produced large numbers of reporters asking, "why did you cancel classes, wouldn't they have been safer in the classrooms?"
the point is - you have 9 locations where you tell people to turn back, they don’t enter the campus at all.
what mass shootings are conducted in parking lots? the gunmen would have to run to the parking lot to start shooting people, where 200 people in cars could run him over.
Unless Norris under went major renovation, I remember it from classes as old, very plain and the corridors relatively long narrow with not as much egress as you would find in the newer buildings. I think the shooter planned this out and knew that an old building like Norris would give him an upper hand.
When I first heard Norris Hall mentioned, I wondered if he did not open fire in the auditorium; what we fondly called “the cliffs of Norris.” It was narrow and one of the steepest auditoriums I can remember being in. With the limited aisle space and steepness, getting out quickly or hiding would have been impossible.
Look this idea of a lock down is good in theory, but VT is kind of spread out and most students do not live on campus. People are coming and going every minute. You can enter it from so many points and there are not fences and guard shacks at the entrances. The campus comes right up to the edge of town. There is a sense of openness and that’s what makes it a nice campus. Yes, you can cancel classes and send out the word on the Internet, radio and whatever but actually locking things down? It might take hours unless there was some kind of audible alert system in place. It’s easy to second guess the police now.
I think mistakes were probably made, but let’s all give the Campus Police a break and wait for the facts. They’ll own up to their mistakes, I feel confident of that.
Right now, let’s concentrate on praying for all that have been touched by this.