By Hannah Gordon
News Editor
St. Bonaventure hasn’t executed a lockdown drill since 2009, and that is a problem.
Vito Czyz, director of Safety and Security, said his team ranked an active shooter as the sixth highest threat to campus, preceded by snow or ice storms, tornado or high winds, residential building fires, power failures, and telecommunications system failure.
All of those situations are very serious and plausible. Czyz said he and his emergency planning team ranked incidents by the impact it would have on campus and the possibility of it happening.
I’ll admit, an active shooter doesn’t seem like it will happen tomorrow on a close-knit campus like Bonaventure. However, we have an open campus and, while firearms aren’t allowed on campus, no one is checking people who come in and out.
Czyz noted there was a change in how the school responds to active- shooter drills. Now, instead of being an immediate lockdown, the response is run, hide and fight. If students can locate the shooter, and it’s safe to move, they are supposed to run off of campus. If it’s not safe, then they are supposed to go into lockdown. If the shooter is breaking down the door, they are supposed to barricade the door as best as possible and arm themselves with something.
How are students and faculty expected to know how to react to a situation if they don’t know the proper protocol? If lockdown procedure has changed from what most students experienced in grammar and high school, it’s the school’s responsibility to educate them.
Isn’t it better to be proactive than reactive? If a lockdown drill were held once a year, to teach freshmen and remind upperclassmen, St. Bonaventure could be confident that everyone knows how to respond.
Safety and Security is in complete compliance with state and federal legislation regarding the drills that need to be executed every year. Czyz said if a situation falls between high probability and high impact, drills are scheduled for it; active shooter didn’t rank high on probability for campus, so no drills are scheduled.
The fire and life safety officer, Ralph Aloia, said four drills per year are done in each residence hall and three in educational or business buildings.
So far this year, 15 shootings or attempted shootings have taken place at different colleges and universities across the United States, not all of which involved fatalities or severe injuries. Shouldn’t Bonaventure be doing drills to educate students and faculty?
Security seems prepared to do their job if an active-shooter situation arises. Czyz has capitalized on the E2Campus text alert system. He has made templates on his account so, if need be, he can send out an alert for almost any situation with just a few clicks. Safety and Security officers also go through training on how to respond to various instances, which is great, but security can’t be everywhere to tell everyone what to do in an emergency. Students need to be able to fend for themselves and help each other.
Czyz said there is no way to be 100 percent prepared for an active shooter, and I agree with him, but for Safety and Security to not do a yearly lockdown exercise isn’t helping the cause.
Hannah Gordon is the News Editor for The Bona Venture. Her email is gordonhr13@bonaventure.edu
