In the past, when a crime or emergency occurred on campus, the university alert system has been met with criticism from some students.
In 2013, a student complained text messages were sent out too slow during reports of a possible armed assailant in the Student Recreation and Wellness Center, the Daily News later reported. In fall of 2014, students were upset when no emergency alert was sent out in response to an armed burglary near campus. In May of this year, the alert system failed to send out a notification about a tornado warning, like the system was supposed to.
Even though the university has added more emergency precautions over the years, which include sending alerts when there is a sexual assault near campus and installing red emergency call boxes in all of the classrooms, some students still had complaints about how the university handled information regarding the person with a gun on campus Sept. 1.
Students complained of the text messages being misspelled and vague and what they said was a lack of knowledge of what to do from Ball State faculty members at the time of the campus lockdown.
The text messages sent to students:
8:27 P.M. - "Man with gun reported on Ball State's Campus (DeHorty/Woodworth Halls Avoid the area. Shelter in place. Visit www.bsu.edu for update."
8:45 P.M. - "Concerning man with a gun call"
8:54 P.M. - "Concerning the man with a gun"
9:02 P.M. - "Suspect is white male in pink shirt w/ gray stripes & khaki pants. Gun in small of back. Last seen in area of Woodworth. Shelter in place until all clear given."
10:19 P.M. - "Shelter in place has been lifted. There is no ongoing threat. (University Police Department) continues to investigate."
“Some of the texts were a little scattered and didn’t make sense,” said Emma Mills-Rittman, a sophomore animation major. “With those messages, everyone just was confused, and it turned into a waiting game to see what was coming.”
The second and third text messages sparked the most conversation among students.
"The first alert I got made sense, the following two literally said something along the line of: ‘concerning man with gun man call’ and that was it so I was like, ‘OK?’," Alex Mikev, a junior visual communication major, said. "I waited it out and then eventually I got the all clear text, which was pretty self-explanatory, and I knew it was safer for me to go home."
Joan Todd, university spokesperson, said UPD and the Division of Strategic Communications sends out the alerts and often needs to do so quickly.
“As the texts might be sent quickly by police who are in the midst of managing the incident, they will be short and sweet,” Todd said. “We are aware that this might sometimes result in some minor misspellings, but the urgency of the messages was clear last night, as people responded appropriately.”
While the texts were effective, Mills-Rittman feels they will need improved for future emergencies.
“The text notifications need updated; security is always in need of an update, but it wasn’t that bad," she said.
Another aspect of the night that sparked criticism was the perceived lack of awareness and direction from Ball State faculty members at the time of the campus lockdown.
Maissie Valiyi, a senior family studies major, was in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center for recruitment practice, when her president received the university’s text about the person with the gun. When her and the president went downstairs to the information desk, she said, “they acted like they had never been trained before.”
The information desk acted as if they had no clue what was happening, she said.
Even after a higher-up was called, Valiyi said she still didn’t receive the information they wanted.
When she asked desk staff asked if the building was going to be locked down, she was told not at that time – and it wasn’t until an hour later. When she later asked if the building had a Public Announcement system, she was told they didn’t know, and if there was additional information, staff members would go around and tell everyone in the student center.
“We were on the top floor,” Valiyi said. “We were going to be one of the last people to know.”
As risk manager of Alpha Phi, Valiyi felt responsible for her sorority sisters' well-being.
“It was really scary to have 120 girls under our wing, and we were in charge of them,” she said. “It would have been a lot more calming if I felt like the student center knew what they were doing.”
Students in other buildings voiced similar concerns in response to the lockdown. In Ball Gym, students were told by security that the lockdown had been lifted around 9:30 p.m., about a half hour before an all-clear was released, said Tara Heilwagen, a sophomore telecommunications and theatre directing major. She ended up walking back to her residence hall before realizing the university was still recommending people stay inside.
Malikah McMillan, a sophomore creative writing major, said she was able to stay safe once the lockdown was announced but did not receive any formal direction from hall staff in Park Hall.
“I don’t think that a lot of the dorm staff really knew what to do or advise the students on where to stay because no one came down to tell me to close my blinds or anything,” McMillan said. “It would have been helpful to know how to stay safe instead of just saying ‘OK, this is happening, I guess this is what I should do to stay safe.’”
Todd said in those situations of emergency, students should rely on information from the Ball State website, emergency emails, texts and follow the “Ball State Alert” Twitter account, which has less than 10,000 followers.
“Faculty and staff are not the official sources of information for emergencies,” Todd said in an email. “UPD and the Division of Strategic Communications are. This is clearly stated on the website, and in all communications to new employees and new students.”
She also said "if there were specific incidents where shelter in place was not followed in a timely fashion [by faculty or staff members], those specifics should be reported to UPD."
Elsewhere on campus, Alyssa Cappelletti, a sophomore pre-med and biology major, praised the university for how it handled the incident.
She was outside of Woodworth Complex, where police said the suspect was, when UPD arrived Sept. 1.
The police immediately told students what was happening and that they needed to leave.
“I was really impressed with how fast they showed up,” Cappelletti said. “They took it really seriously.”
The university has sent out text and Twitter alerts more frequently this year than previous years, a common past complaint. Emergency alert texts, tweets or emails have already been used for four incidents this school year, compared to the five situations when tweets, texts or emails were issued in the entire 2015-16 school year, some of which were just the reporting of Burris Laboratory School closure due to weather.
As a result of Sept. 1's incident, Todd encourages everyone to sign up for emergency alert notifications.
Information on how to sign up for emergency alerts can be found here.
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