Assessing the threat of gun violence
How Lakeland is working to prevent shootings on campus
Becky Meyer
Issue date: 3/11/10 Section: News
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On Tuesday, Feb. 23, a 32-year-old man shot and wounded two middle school students as they were boarding the school bus in Littleton, Colorado. Math teacher David Benke is reported to have charged and tackled the shooter. April will mark the anniversaries of both the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres.
Despite the fact that it appears that school shootings are increasing, Director of Safety and Security, Annette Gamache said, "School shootings have always happened," and now they are just more publicized through the Internet, television, and Twitter.
Lakeland security is making changes to help prevent these crimes, or crimes of any sort, from occurring on our campus. Gamache said that students are "the biggest eyes and ears" at Lakeland because they are the ones who have the most interactions with fellow students on campus. When someone comes forward, a situation can be prevented.
"Every instance out there, there have been huge warning signs," Gamache said, giving the example of the situation at Virginia Tech. "No one talked to each other within the institution." Gamache said that the bigger the institution, the more difficult it can become to communicate throughout the different departments on campus, and that the lack of communication is what can allow crimes to happen.
Gamache said that it is better to be "proactive rather than reactive," and security is steadily making changes to become more effective. "Change is always good. It's better than being stagnant," Gamache said.
In order to become more proactive, Vice President for Student Development Nate Dehne, along with Gamache and Assistant Director of Safety and Security Sam Scharinger, are currently organizing a campus threat assessment and management team. Many groups from various parts of the college will be represented, including a faculty member to represent the students.
Gamache said that Director of Counseling Services Cary Knier and Director of the Health Center Sherry Carstens would most likely be involved in the organization, and other faculty members who see students and have a lot of contact with them will be recruited.
The goal of this organization is to "get in touch with students before it gets to a critical stage." Gamache also includes faculty and staff in this goal because staff members can suffer from these kinds of problems as well.
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Madison Movers
posted 3/30/10 @ 11:18 AM CST
It's really unfortunate that there have been so many shootings, but that's something that's really difficult to anticipate and prevent.
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