I can't imagine how sad and frustrated you must feel but I just want to say that I never would expect a teacher to protect students from other students. I mean there's only so much one teacher can do and expecting a teacher to be a bodyguard seems to be a bit much. A good teacher, a kind and understanding ear and someone to keep everyone calm if the need arises might be as far as I'd expect a teacher's role to go.
Actually, maybe we could all use some training including college students. I don't know though, it's a sad situation.
I agree. As frustrating as it may be, there is no real way to train any teacher to control a total unexpected and uncontrolled dangerous situation in a classroom (whatever level of the students) To be honest, I am not sure it's a good idea to set teachers up for that sort of legal obligation either. Imagine the lawsuits if teachers were trained and paid to be pseudo-law enforcement, in addition to their other duties, and somehow someone died anyways. That is an awfully hefty responsibility to place on people who are not combat trained. (IMO)
I think the best thing that can be done is implementing campus wide...scratch that... EVERY business, school or institution should have an emergency contingency in place. There needs to be a real emergency procedure that can help save lives and be implemented immediately when danger erupts. There needs to be better ways to communicate that there is a dangerous person in the vicinity, like codes in a hospital. The common problem, in these shooting situations, seems to be that people are caught unaware and the shooting continues until after the police arrive. And of course, it takes time for the police to contain the situation. They come on to the scene and it's chaos. They are not totally familiar with the surrounding, they have no idea who is a victim and who is a shooter, they have to protect themselves and the victims. And they have to figure out a way to stop the perpetrator.
There needs to be some way to alert people once the first shot is fired. (Maybe like a universal alarm that means 'dangerous predator in the vicinity'? I dunno, something that is recognized as a threat coming from a person or persons...not a fire or natural disaster alarm) There needs to be a way to really lock down sections of campuses so the shooters cannot exit one building (or room) and enter another one to continue killing. IOW, I don't think it should be left up to training the faculty or people in charge, (especially given the fact that shooters often target the person in charge first) there really need to be changes so that EVERY person in the area is alerted that they are under attack and need to do what they can to protect themselves. Just that knowledge could have saved some lives today, possibly.
I have no idea if any of that is even feasible. It's a horrible thing, but like others have said...it seems that when someone really gets it in their mind to go on one of these rampages, they have the upper hand and the victims are defenseless.
I continue to pray for all involved today...the victims, the students, the families. What a horrible, horrible, senseless tragedy.
DH has been really affected by it. It is his Alma Mater. The victims and their families are in our hearts and thoughts.
