Maryland schools review safety plans in wake of deadly Illinois shootings

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Universities in Maryland and elsewhere are grappling with the painful repetition of campus shootings, reviewing their security plans and wondering how they would react if a tragedy struck, in the wake of the deadly rampage at Northern Illinois University.

“It’s unnerving to realize that this could be happening here in Maryland and on our campus,” said sophomore Josh Michael, a Student Government Association officer and political science and secondary education major at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“It’s unnerving to see college campuses targeted. It makes you look around at night and at what’s going on in class. I can imagine sitting in a lecture hall and feel what it’s like in their shoes.”

After a former NIU student fatally shot five others and then himself on Valentine’s Day, college presidents nationwide sent e-mails to assure students and faculty that security measures have been beefed up.

In a message to the community at Loyola College in Maryland, President Brian Linnane acknowledged how difficult it is to predict a situation like NIU’s or last spring’s Virginia Tech shootings.

But he attempted to comfort students by saying that the Baltimore college has hired additional off-duty police officers, launched emergency cell phone text alerts and installed remote door-locking systems in campus buildings — initiatives schools statewide also have unveiled in the past year. Other universities also have sirens, voice alerts through speakers and locking gates.

Colleges, once considered sheltered nests of academe, are now trying to improve security without restricting access too much.

“The environment used to be a safe haven. You’d come to a campus and were transported to a different world every day,” said Robert Lang, a national expert on campus safety.

“What you are seeing now is the realization that universities are not those safe havens any longer, and we can’t afford to not put things in place that other communities have had.”

As a result, campus police budgets are growing, police forces are expanding and more university law enforcement agencies are pursuing accreditation.

“Safety and security have become the top of the funding priority list,” said William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland.

The board of regents, which governs the system, has created a group that will interview local and national safety experts before embarking on a review of the safety of the 11 public universities.

Both the NIU and Virginia Tech shooters suffered from mental illnesses, but only the latter had shown erratic behavior and written disturbing diatribes — warning signs universities must monitor, said Joseph Zerhusen, director of security at Villa Julie College.

Federal health privacy laws are sometimes too strict when protecting patients’ medical histories and should be weighed against the safety of other students, he said.

To help identify students with mental illnesses and get them into treatment, social workers will participate in a seminar Wednesday at University of Maryland, Baltimore.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com

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