This entry was posted on 4/27/2007 8:00 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
Sadly, one of the things that will be remembered about the Virginia
Tech shooting rampage is the useless reaction of police with its scores
of SWAT teams running in a frenzy up and down with high-powered guns
and useless M16s. The response looked pretty spectacular - ambulances,
police cars, snipers. Everybody ready for combat!
But there was one problem: The combat was long gone.
It seems as if we are reaching a point where reality is begging for
leaders in key civilian protective agencies (from FEMA or campus
police) to have coup d'oeil. This is the ability to have a quick glance
into a problematic situation with incomplete information and know how
to react accordingly.
This need has been seen before on the battlefields of war, now it's
required on the civilian ones. Napoleon is said to have had it, along
with General Patton and Erwin Rommel.
Did Wendell Flinchum, head of Virginia Tech Police, have coup d'oeil?
The failure to immediately lockdown the campus shows us he likely did
not. And more troubling, are the police and state active shooter
protocols based on common sense? I say no to either!
Shooting sprees on educational facilities could be considered a unique
battle scenario, and its law enforcement responses should be tailored
accordingly.
For example, why can't a siren with a distinctive cadence be used to
alert the entire campus of an ongoing shooting? If they are routinely
used for tornado alerts, why not for shooting sprees?
Also, in order to minimize the chaos generated by the shooting itself,
ambulances and police cars should rush in with special camouflage gear
and without light and sound. Equally important, police and SWAT teams
should be deployed heavily armed but wearing civilian clothes in order
to maximize the alert to bystanders but not to the shooter himself.
The overall police response should be based on stealthiness and
low-profile but relentless action. Clearly, we didn't see anything of
this during the Virginia Tech killings; instead of using a simple pair
of pliers or a ramming stick to open Norris Hall's doors, police opened
fire at the chains, prompting the shooter to commit suicide.
College shootings are tricky scenarios. One would wish to use brute
force in order to quickly crush the SOB, but by using brute force, you
are likely going to cause additional harm to innocent bystanders.
Moreover, one situation that will probably happen with future shootings
and the present shooter protocols might not contemplate it, is what
happens if someone seizes the shooter's gun and kills him or somebody
else by accident? Are the police, in their seek-and-destroy gear going
to realize the change, or is it something that simply doesn't matter at
that point?
After what happened in Virginia, thinking about the next shooting on an
educational battleground can seem too grim to talk about, but because
the gun control debate isn't going to budge an inch in forbidding guns,
and their deadly sprawling will keep hurting the United States,
choosing coup d'oeil leaders and upgrading security defenses and
protocols seem to be increasingly important.
David Soler didn't purposely name the shooter, is a biomedical sciences graduate and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater
. Contact him at dsoler@kent.edu.
