Mia voĉo (My voice)

Protesters???

The Columbine-like catastrophe which occurred today at Virginia Tech gives us a chance to look and see what preparations campus security forces have made for such occurrences.

The simple answer would seem to be "none".

Today's killer started out his attack in a dormitory, where he shot two people dead. He was then quiet for two or three hours while the campus movers-and-shakers got together with campus security to decide what to do next. Apparently they decided to do nothing, under the mistaken impression that the killer had left the campus and perhaps even the state. Then, around nine o'clock, the killer started in again in one of the engineering buildings. Final toll: 33 dead. How the killer finally died, I don't know, but given the efficiency of campus security and the local police during the killing sweep, I would guess that he shot himself, if only to embarrass the police.

Campus security had neither plan nor clue.

Does campus security have contingency plans for anything? Apparently, yes. A reporter for our local radio news station KCBS asked a campus security rep from one of the regional California State University campuses about this and was assured that campus security keeps its eyes wide open for situations that will attract protesters.

Protesters???

Maybe someone out there will point out to me a single case in which a protester has ever killed another student.

No, it now seems to me that the job of campus security is not to protect the students, but to protect the sensibilities of university movers-and-shakers from students. Campus security can't stop one kid from shooting 33 fellow students; but odds-on, if the Regents were ever to hold a meeting to discuss increasing investment in Myanmar, security would be out in force to prevent student protesters from forcing the Regents to pay attention to opinions that they might not share.

Posted by Don Harlow at April 16, 2007 05:22 PM