Posted on 02/16/2008 8:49:25 AM PST by BenLurkin
DEKALB, Ill. (CBS) ― Bloody students fleeing in terror. Bodies carried out on stretchers. Candlelight vigils and makeshift shrines. Another campus, another deadly attack with a sickening senselessness that now borders on routine.
Despite a national push to secure schools after the Virginia Tech shootings, the rampage at Northern Illinois University this week proves a gut-wrenching reality: Unless colleges are willing to turn themselves into armed camps, they're helpless against these kinds of attacks.
As word of the shootings rippled throughout the country, students and authorities alike reacted with frustration and - tellingly - resignation.
"I don't think there's anything that could be done," said Brittany Dornack, 21, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota.
"People do what they feel like they need to do, and I don't think anyone is going to be able to stop them. People will just have to either learn to live in fear ... or they'll just have to not think about it."
The gunman this time, Steven Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old NIU graduate, opened fire Thursday afternoon in a lecture hall, killing five students and injuring more than a dozen others in a rapid-fire assault that lasted just a few minutes. He committed suicide on the stage.
"I saw people just running off of campus and people were crying and holding each other, police were running around everywhere, and the whole town was just a huge, loud siren," David Healy, an NIU teaching assistant, told CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago.
Authorities responded quickly; the first 10 police officers were on the scene in 90 seconds. NIU launched its emergency alert system - a carefully rehearsed plan developed after Virginia Tech - sending out e-mails and messages on Web sites to notify students that a possible gunman was on campus and they needed to find a safe area.
"We had a plan in place," said NIU President John Peters. "We did everything we could to ensure the safety of this university ... Nothing is perfect, but I believe it did work."
The plan will be reviewed, he said, but it and others like it are response plans, meant to contain the carnage rather than keep it from happening. As NIU Police Chief Donald Grady said, there is no foolproof way to prevent this type of tragedy.
"I wish I could tell you that there was a panacea for this kind of a thing, but you've noticed that there's been multiple shootings all over this country within the past six months," he said. "It's a horrible circumstance, and as much as we do it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning."
That sober assessment weighed on the minds of NIU students who piled suitcases and laundry bags into cars Friday and left the nearly empty, snow-covered campus, apprehensive about their eventual return.
"You're scared to go to school lecture halls and I'm going to be looking over my shoulder and skeptical of people coming to class late," said Allison Warren, a 20-year-old NIU student. "You kind of think it won't happen around here. It could happen anywhere. It could happen anywhere and there's no way of really protecting yourself."
NIU, which is spread over 755 acres, illustrates the difficulty in protecting college campuses that have scores, or hundreds of buildings. Locking them, installing metal detectors or putting security personnel in each of them are not considered practical security measures.
The shootings, of course, have renewed questions about the availability of guns - Kazmierczak bought all four guns legally from the same shop in Champaign, Ill. - and the tricky balance in keeping public places accessible but safe.
"People ask the question, 'Can you stop it?' That demonstrates the bigger question: 'Can we stop it anywhere?'" asked Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, a nonprofit group in Pennsylvania. "College and university campuses are not perfect oases. This is not the ivory tower."
Kassa said NIU's plan appears to have prevented more deaths.
"The lesson to be drawn from this is that it could have been worse if people were not prepared," he said. "Colleges and university campuses are unique but they must be seen as communities like everything else."
Still, the freer environment of campuses also can pose security risks, said Ron Stephens, director of the National School Safety Center in California.
"For the most part, college and university campuses are much more wide open to the public," he said. "There's not a lot of screening done for students. There are probably few institutions that screen ... to see if someone coming on campus has a troubled or checkered past."
Others pointed out that violence is not limited to college campuses. In the past two weeks, there have been fatal shootings at a Louisiana vocational college in the urban setting of Baton Rouge, a Missouri city hall and a clothing chain store in suburban Chicago.
"People go crazy whether it's at a school or at a workplace. ... You can't live your life not going to class," said Barbara Coons, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Pennsylvania.
That may be harder to say on campus ripped raw by violence.
"My dad was saying last year, 'I'm really glad you go to Northern where stuff like that doesn't happen,'" said Bryce Lack, a 19-year-old NIU student, referring to the Virginia Tech massacre. "You look at everybody differently now."
Desiree Smith was in the geology class when Kazmierczak opened fire. She dropped to the floor as he squeezed off shots, grabbing another terrified student's leg as a show of support.
She crawled first, then got up and ran for her life.
She doesn't care how common such shootings have become - they make no sense to her.
"I don't understand why you'd want to go to a random place and hurt random people you've never met," she said. ... "I really hate it. I wish we could figure out how to solve this problem because it makes me sick."
Shame on CBS.
Sheeple.
What about the removal of God from all schools at all levels?
No mention there either.
You could have gone to college in Utah, had a CCW and carried in class.
Good point. No mention of God at all.
Gee. How about allow licensed concealed carry on campus so they are not advertised gun free victim zones.
“People ask the question, ‘Can you stop it?’ That demonstrates the bigger question: ‘Can we stop it anywhere?’”
An armed citizen stopped it in Colorado Springs?
Hello ignorant writer.
The article claims that the damage would have been worse if NIU hadn’t had a “plan.”
I wonder if there’s any truth at all in that, or only wishful thinking. Apparently the murderer turned his gun on himself pretty quickly after the first shooting. I don’t know if he did so because responders had shown up, or simply because he wanted to kill himself and bring some people with him so he’d get into the news.
Another good point!
I was glad to hear how many students where calling for conceal and carry laws instead of cowering like victims! I mean, I was flabbergasted! Maybe there is a little ray of hope.
Do we actually have witnesses that say he killed himself?
I still don’t trust the MSM nor the police to tell us the truth.
As posted elsewhere, if someone had a gun in the class and ended it. The MSM wouldn’t like it. Self defense does not meet their reporting Modus operandi.
Typical post-gun tragedy, knee-jerk “WHY?” crapola from the media.
Wrong...
Really? Where did you see that? Certainly not in this article....
Brittany Dornack, 21, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. "....People will just have to either learn to live in fear ... or they'll just have to not think about it."
Amazingly, it was on the ABC news in Chicago. I almost thought I had misunderstood what they were saying, but then I heard it on a couple of other stations.
STudent quoted in the article: “It could happen anywhere and there’s no way of really protecting yourself.”
A couple of friends of mine, Mr. 9mm and Mr. .357, beg to differ.
Oh, there's a panacea alright - it's called gun control, but it's just that - a panacea. I hate to say this, but I'm almost immune to these incidents any more. I don't fear a single lone gun man because the odds of that happening to me are so remote as to be non-existent (I could be mauled by a tiger escaped from the zoo, too). I fear an omni-present government with an unlimited budget (that I've partially funded) to persecute me and take my freedom. Not even the Mafia is as dangerous or powerful as a government. Governments can take your life essentially without fear of reprisal. Government is every where. Lone nut cases are by definition few and far between.
I watched See BS news with Miss Perky a few nights ago, and to their credit they did mention the national movement to allow guns in colleges and showed a map of states that are pondering allowing guns in schools.
I’ve seen many comments here on FR about the wisdom of allowing “half sober” students to strap on a hogleg. I went to college in the 90’s and lived in the neighborhood surrounding the school (you know—the place where your Constitutional rights suddenly re-appear). I don’t remember any frat boys or others feeling the need to arm themselves even though they had the right. Is gun possession and misuse a problem in the university community across the nation? No, so why would there be a problem when that right is extended into the university proper?
I also was an older student at my university (the average age was around 27). Many of my peers were ex-military or still active in the Guard attending college under the GI bill. These are the people that wouldn’t have a problem carrying in a university and stepping up to the plate when needed. And you don’t need a lot of these people; the threat of getting your @ss blown away if you decide to get your freak on is a great deterrent (just like it is in the real world). As for the psychos—one armed citizen is all it takes to stop it. Remember: evil exists when good men refuse to confront it.
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