Faculty Afraid GWU Is Unprepared For Campus Shooter

WASHINGTON - May 3, 2023 - PRLog -- Faculty at the George Washington University [GWU] are afraid because many have not received any training about what to do if their campus is ever visited by a crazed shooter, says GWU's student newspaper.

Actually, GWU has followed the almost-universal advice of experts and installed a system which permits classroom doors to be locked electrically from the inside, since no professor wants to step out into the hall to lock a door with a shooter on the loose, and no campus shooter has ever breached a locked classroom door, says GWU law professor John Banzhaf.

But unfortunately the system GWU installed was very different from the one recommended, is far from fail safe, and could easily fail to operate in an emergency for many reasons, he said, based on his experience as a security officer and security consultant, and also as an MIT-trained engineer who has designed and worked with electrical locking systems.

Indeed, he alerted a federal security agency to a serious flaw in its electrical-locking system, which it promptly corrected.

Even more shocking, in a recent survey not a single member of the faculty was even aware that their classrooms could be locked in the event an active-shooter-on-campus alarm is sent out, much less knew how to activate the system in an emergency.

A GWU spokesperson is quoted as explaining that the university is currently having "reviews and discussions" about "enhancements" to its "holistic" public safety plan.  Indeed, a holistic public safety plan seems to be what some faculty member want, and probably expect will protect them in the event a shooter comes to campus.

Writing in opposition to GWU's plan to arm a small number of its specially trained supervisory police officers, these faculty members wrote: "If we seek to broaden the imagination on public safety, have we trained the GWU community as a whole in how to illuminate the dignity of all people (especially in conflict situations), how to practice deep empathy, how to use nonviolent communication, how to de-escalate through active bystander intervention skills and nonviolent self-defense training."

But Banzhaf points out that deranged-shooter-on-campus situations have been resolved by the use of deadly force – either to neutralize the shooter or to pressure him to shoot himself – and not by deep empathy, dignity enhancement, intervention skills, or nonviolent communication.

He suggests GWU consider the many simple, inexpensive, logical, effective,and proven suggestions contained in this detailed study:

UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS - How Can Universities Tackle the Threat of Active Shooters? (https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001iotLzAm19fA48C8chHWf9MWxw...)

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