I want. To start by really, thanking, all of you for coming I want to especially thank the, students, that, I see who. Have prioritized, coming, this, morning I also want to begin with a thank you to captain, Collins and his team and the Warwick, police for. Their service on Monday they. Did an outstanding job, of responding, to the situation, I think. We all know if you were here at the campus, emergency. Situations, are tense I'm very, proud of how this community, responded. To the notification from. The college police people took the announcement, seriously. Followed. Directions and stayed calm we. Know we have learned from, the experience, and a big part of today is to gather your feedback, so, that we can improve this. Discussion. Today is part. Of an ongoing conversation, we. Are having at our college we, take the safety of every single person who works, teaches. Attends. Classes or, visits, our College seriously. And I'd, like to begin by recapping. What we've done today, working. Closely with Rhode Island's emergency management agency and director, Gaynor we, finalized, our emergency, management plan we. Continue, to communicate regularly, with, that agency, last. October. We held safety, briefings, on all four campuses, then. In November, we, hosted an active shooter training right. Here in Warwick the senior, team campus, police and Warwick Police participated. In a tabletop exercise on an active shooter and we were trained in the Federal Emergency Management, agency's, incident, management model. Let. Me know outline why we're here today first, to get a fever. About. Your experience, of Monday what, worked what, didn't, what, are your concerns and, what are your questions, today. We're going to talk about Monday's, incident, explain. How college, and local police respond. To, situations like. The report that was made on Monday and based. On your feedback outline. Our plans to improve upon our work an emergency. Communication. And preparedness. Here's. What we hope to accomplish today. Define. Emergency. Language, so, that we better understand, how, to respond, to. Update. You on training, and initiatives. To positively, impact the safety of our college and three, engage, in a conversation about, how we can better prepare for emergencies. Large, and small at our campuses, please. Ask questions with. Me today aura leaks Ogden she, will speak about facilities, emergency, notifications. And efforts. Our College is taking, moving. Forward to improve, our preparedness, and communication. And captain. Sean Collins who will speak about Monday, and how, to engage in, emergency, preparedness training, and we'll take your questions, before. I turn it over to a Leakes I do want, to thank captain Collins and his team one more time and the Warwick police for, their leadership and for their service the, goal of today is to gather your feedback and incorporate. It into our plan for, ongoing improvement. And in training so, with that I'll turn it over to a Leakes. Thank. You and good morning can, everyone hear me. Okay. Great. So, I'm going to go through a few. Issues that were identified. Following. The incident on Monday and, I'll just say that this is just a start and really. Putting it out there to hear your feedback about the. Issues that I raised and anything else if your conservative, concern. To you I, will, say we're. It's kind of a lot of information if we could hold questions, until, captain. Collins, is done speaking and then people can just come up come on up to the microphone, thank, you, so. We've learned a lot from Monday, there's no doubt about that and we want to keep learning from you, so, thank, you for your very, immediate feedback about communication. And we. Know that we need to do a better job with it so we heard there, was confusion about the communication, that recommend, recommend, 'add sheltering. In place and. Moved. To a locked room we, heard that that was confusing so. We're gonna work to standardize, our communications. And are. Looking for your feedback so what, I'm going to outline is supposed to cover any, kind, of incident where we're concerned that there's a threat to, safety so. We'll use Raven ounce. Mancine. Text, to. Do that so, you may receive a raven ounce minh of an incident and direction, to take protective, action, and the, announcement will tell you what to do so the announcement might, say we, have had a chemical spill in the lab area on the first floor of campus, please. Avoid the area and call physical plant if you smell a strange odor in your workspace if. A. Rave report asks you to shelter in place that. Means find a protective, space and move away from the windows if you can lock your office or classroom door you, should lock it this, is most likely to be used excuse, me this is most likely to be used as the. Police are determining, if there's a threat and at the nature of the threat if. There. Is a lockdown this. Means that there's an imminent, and active, threat on campus, and College Police will lock down using, our centralized, system, so.
Three Different kinds of messages and we're, very interested in your feedback if that brings, clarity, in the. Next week please look for a communication from college police that will contain a video from, the active shooter training that, we held in in, the fall and it, will train you on the best practices, should there be an active shooter situation on campus we. Will be sending out this video at the beginning of each semester as, a reminder, and to train those who are new to the College. We. Also heard questions about our locking system, the. System that we have in place locks. Down night liston and flan attic Flanagan, campuses, all at the same time, we've. Asked our vendor to, set up a module so that we can lock down individual, campuses, we. Know that we need the flexibility, but I want to assure everyone, that had college police determined. That we needed to lock down this campus on Monday. We would have done so regardless. Of the impact to the other campuses. We. Also heard there were problems with the rave reports, that, not everyone, who registered, for rave, received. The reports on Monday, if. You. If, you have registered, for rave you should have been, provided, those texts, and so the system did not work properly. On. Tuesday. Our marketing, team met with IT and we. Believe that we've identified both, the problem and the solution we. Need to be sure that once you provide. Your. Cell number to the college it will be in rave, once. We have that solution in place we, will send out a rave test and we'll test it every semester we. Will, only use rave texts in an emergency, or when. As we did on Tuesday we need to contacted, you in a rapid manner to. Get emails out to our entire community actually, takes too much time if, there is the potential of an emergency. We're. Looking to upgrade our rave system, with a more comprehensive system. We, are moving forward with upgrading, our merges in the alert system. To. Something that's called alert us the. Alerta' system will increase our communication channels. Including. Taking over college, computers. Kiosks. Including, the big TV above us office. And classroom phones, it will provide intercoms, and an, active shooter button at dispatch, for all campuses. So, with that those that's some of the actions and things that are in progress, and. I'll turn it over to captain Collins now, good. Morning thank you everyone for being here I. Would. Like to add a few other improvements. That we make everyone hear me okay. We've. Just completed, the installation of a new communication. System and, we. Look forward to. Installing. A one. Emergency. Number for all four campuses that's. In progress the, new radio system is up and working extremely. Well we can talk to all four campuses at the same time. We. Have. Rolled. Out a number of policies, and procedures and are well on their way as far as accreditation. We've. Implemented. Non-lethal. Less, lethal. Equipment. To our officers, everyone's, equipped with pepper spray we're. Moving, on to batons. And. We. Just recently completed some, training in Newport with the Newport Police Department, so, we. Have been since. Last year. We, have been since last year. Embarking. On a robust. Emergency. Management, program. Which, involves, a multi-faceted. System. Training. Equipment. New. Equipment, new technologies. As the leaks was just talking about so, we have a lot in, the works a lot underway we know that there's room for improvement, as. From Monday I want. To thank the community at large for. The response, the. First thing, the. First consideration. For anyone particularly, in my position in, any, emergency is life safety. It's, overwhelming responses, to make sure that nobody gets hurt so while the episode. Was unfolding, and we're trying to determine exactly what we were working on we determined, that there was no imminent. Threat to the community however. We, wanted to notify, people of, a.
Possibility. We had Warwick respond, and you. Know in a rapid fashion to. Make sure that your, safety was maintained. We. Understand, that as a legal sender that when the communication, went out there was some confusion. We. Want to get to a point where. When. A message, goes out that there is sorry. I keep backing off the microphone, it's an awkward position. When. A message goes out that you are confident, you know what to do that's the ideal, so. That requires training. Communication. And it, needs to be sustained, over time so. Having. Said that I, will open. Up for questions. Lex. So. I'm with the the, changes made the new improvements that are to come obviously you'd. Want to serve everyone at the college faculty and students alike administration. As well, now, just I'm. Curious, as to how. If. To if to any degree. The. Students would be involved it, seems to me that if you. Want. To adjust the program and fix maybe some, problems that we had during the this, specific. Incident incident. You'd. Want to speak to the people that. Experienced, those problems, so, now this for this meeting in particular for example. Notification. Didn't go out to the students in order to get them involved I myself found out just by. Chance through a conversation, with, a professor or, almost accidentally, um so when my question is to. What degree if any will the students be involved in the improvement of this process. I'm. Always available I'd be glad to come. To student government meetings, and. If. You want to have, a representative. Meet. With me regularly I'll be glad to do that but. As. We roll out communications, I, don't. Know why there's some. Bifurcation. And email. Process, or I mean. There's. A number of things about it and we can do it I'm open to suggestions, that's getting, input from the students if. You have any particular concerns that were raised I, just. Want to make sure that that everyone this is going to affect would. Be involved in the process so, Lex thank you and I see Charles, here as well I think it's going to be important that you to put your heads together with your team come, up with a proposal, for, how we bring students together and we will absolutely meet. With you and so I think being, very deliberate, about that and scheduling, it you.
Know Probably, multiple, sessions so that we can involve. As many students as possible so absolutely. Please, work with captain Collins's team to make that happen and we can do that today, and, I also have a second question if I may. There's actually some several students in the music department wanted me to bring this forward they. Were concerned because when. It comes to getting. Any kind of signals down there it's pretty much a dead zone and a lot of them didn't receive the initial oriT this, this new program. That you have spoken of it involved kind of taking, over the classroom computers, and getting. A lot would, that satisfy. That need where, they're concerned. The. Idea, is to reach. As. Many. People as possible there, will always be. Dead. Zones people's. Cell, phones that are charged. There. Will always be some. But. We're. Hoping that that in addition, to everything else we use we'll, be able to reach everybody. We. Also like the fact that I talk, to people after the incident, and some. People like it some people like great successes, right so, I don't know if my. Friend from the EMT program is here. It's. Okay. To reach out right, so if you know you're good you're. In a secure area and you, look out as this person didn't soar 25 students standing outside hey. Everyone, come in let's go come on, alright, so they've, gotten, the word but they were unsure of what to do so it's it's as a community, let's help. Each other some, people will never react. As. Well, as others some. People may not have gotten the word so. Take. Care of yourself of course but as you are, in the process of that if you can reach out and say hey did you get that ready you. Know. Come. With me let's. Go let's go into. This room or something I understand that that situation, but in this particular situation it's, an, entire, portion of the building where, such, a signal wouldn't reach so I'm wondering it sounds. Like it would but I just wanted to clarify so I have something to tell them but, this this new system it sounds like it would necessarily round cellphone signals but it would be almost hardwired, exactly, so it's um the point is is, that we'll have many different. Ways of communicating with people throughout, the building's so. Whether that's by intercom, cell phone by a computer, or by a phone so there are multiple, modes of communicating, in order, to address that issue that you've raised all, right thank you very much thank you and keep in mind that you, know this was not Frette. If. This had been an actual active, shooter situation. All. The buttons would be pushed so to speak right. Whatever. Mechanism. We have been notifying they'd all be used so. To reach out as many people as possible. I. Have a couple questions, so bear with me. I was. Not here Monday but, I did receive the text out of. The. School and I. Was, wondering I came in the day the day later is there any possible. Way there's gonna be a security, uh pitch because, anybody. Can come in and out of this school and it's, very hard to distinguish people that have weapons and people that do not have weapons and I, was wondering if there's any gonna be any. Sort. Of security uh pitch or maybe like a security at the door or just. At all times maybe watching. So. In. Addition to the new communication. System because, communications. I. Was very important, so, in. Addition to the robust, communication. System that we just installed we. Also have a. Very, extensive camera, system coming behind. You, dude, was a situation. Today is our. New kiosk. Which. Is right at our main entrance. During. The incident one day that, was staffed. However. We think that for a few minutes that the individual, came and the, officer, was, off. Doing something on a break here I actually wasn't in the booth at that time but, um so. That effort there is to have somebody by the main entrance as often as possible. It. Is a campus, it, has, to be open I. Think. With the, security. Systems we're putting in place. Our. Great, cooperation. With our local police department, our. Addition. Of. Defensive. Mechanisms, that our officers are carrying, now I think we're making great headway. I don't know if that a completely misses your question. Another. Thing about the safe, rooms I know there's different sections in the school for. Something. Like that in, our case the. Shooter, wouldn't. It be more, safe to remain, in the rooms instead, of risking. Our lives traveling, through the hallways because. You never know where they could be heading, in the staircases hiding. In the elevator, or even. Just hiding in a room where you're walking by and they jump out and for. Situations, like that I feel like there. Should be no like not, saying no safe rooms but I feel like it would be safer, to maintain, in the classroom with the locked doors and.
Something. Like that I don't know your opinion on that I feel like instead. Of people. Traveling, through the hallways risking, their lives you never know where they're going to come out and I, wonder. If, there's any leg improvement, on that well. To your point. These. Incidents, by the way which it seems like they happen all the time they still extremely rare I mean, we see on the news that happens, it's tragic when it happens. But. They are still extremely rare we, need to be prepared for them one. Of the ways to do that is to have situational. Awareness so. During. The incident, Monday some people said yeah I got the alert I was on my way to campus, I called in I'm not coming until it's called clear perfect. Right if. You're in a secure room or a room that you can't secure you, might want to stay there. Where's. The threat okay so if we're communicating, if we know where a person, is. Is. The person on the first floor the sixth floor if you're five floors away and you're in a secure area stay, in a secure area keep in mind please everybody in, the, event of an actual active. Shooter situation. There. Is going to be more law enforcement on-site. Here than, at an FOP, convention it's it's and, I'm not saying that to be flipped there's just going to be a hundred and fifty law enforcement, officers here and some. Of the finest, SWAT, teams in the state I think you saw Monday the reaction. We have a great working relationship with local. Law enforcement Warwick, was very good to us Monday as far as their response. But. Your. Situational. Awareness about where you are is. Key you you, have to act on it if you're in a hall if you're in a great hall here and if. It was an active shooter situation, you. Might want to get into one of the local offices, if. You're near. An exit it's, perfectly, acceptable to exit. To. Your car there, are so many variables, and so many you, know so many people in so many places you.
Have To kind of take a second, analyze and just by I'm glad you asked the question because you're thinking along those lines right what. Am I gonna do it depends on where you are what your circumstances, are so. Okay. Last question I'm sorry, about. Since. We're on the topic of communication, I just, found. Out today that a. Professor, got the email about. The. Incident, and I, never got an email about the. Just. Information. About it and I I feel. Like there should students. Should know the situation, that way they compare themselves is there, any way we can have like. An. Alert for everybody, that way they can understand the situations, and how like we can mentally physically, prepare ourselves if for some reason we needed like my. My grandma's not let me go out the house without pepper spray because I'm, always. Here so, I'm. Not sure I'm understanding you didn't get the rave so no. I got the text rave but I didn't get like an email notifying, me of the actual situation so. I got I got the rave text and what it consisted, of but, like the actual information on, like, specific, details that I like, I wish I knew that way I can prepare. Myself is there any way they can maybe, do that for students as well because I feel like we all should know, you're. Looking for follow-up, communication yes yes exactly. We. Can absolutely do that and when, as and. Maybe you couldn't couldn't hear because of the microphone, but we, did only use text, during. The incident because, to get email. Out to 20,000. People it just takes the system too long so we'll, definitely follow up with an email that will go to everyone, okay thank you. So. Is. Actually in response to the conversation, you and I had the other day I understand, that. The. Police. Were here within, three minutes and, you were all up on the sixth floor basically. Trying to clear as it was but, there were still people from, what I was told I was in a room I didn't move so I can't be a hundred percent on this but. There were people still walking the halls and, eventually. At one point they, were saying that they were trying to clear the sixth floor doesn't that go against, what it is that you're trying to do here which is shelter, in place so. If people were being told to go to a different floor and you don't know exactly where this person, is isn't. It possible that you're at by if you know they're not on the sixth floor shouldn't, you try to shuttle, people into, every room up there possible, rather. Than, move, them to different floors and then the other thing too is is I was in the. Unfiltered, lens I didn't. Move none of us moved but there were still people in the, Student, Union doing. Whatever just sitting there they I don't know whether they knew what was going on or if. They didn't care but they were just doing whatever and nothing, was done to, have at least one. Somebody. From security, at least go from floor to floor just, to try to clear people out of the hallways and all the public areas because I think also, there were people still sitting here in the, Great Hall during this issue they, were, I. Don't. Want to confuse two things here okay the. Incident, Monday was not an active shooter incident it was not an imminent threat the. Police came because. Our. Analysis. Of, the, conversation. With the person that reported, things. We. Determined, it was no. Imminent, threat however, out, of an abundance of caution we wanted to arm police the work police there we, wanted them to go through the building well until, we determine. Again. And what I started up my conversation, like Safety's, number one right so we're always going to defer to saving. Lives I think you're talking, that, if this was an active shooter why aren't we going around making sure everyone's. Again. We're going to talk about shelter-in-place, on lockdown right, if it was an active shooter we, lockdown, we want everyone in a, secure. Place as possible, not, in the Great Hall not in the, hallways, so, I. Get. What you're saying the concern, that day was to. Make, sure that. There was absolutely no threat to the campus we didn't believe that there was an imminent threat and, we, confirm that eventually, but we wanted to have the police on scene now. Our. Our. Peek was, not there you're talking about if it was an active shooter yeah, it would have been a whole different story, and we. Would have made sure that people were not by knowing, that day we had the. Fortune. Of having five, fully. Uniformed. Armed Senator false police officers in the Great Hall. But. The. Sixth floor is one of the most vulnerable places and, they were you the police were here within three minutes you are already on campus and, you went to the most vulnerable place almost, instantaneously.
And I will say that I will say thank you for that that you did what you had to do in the moment I won't question, you on that at all but, having not known the. Full story I was just curious why you weren't going from, floor to floor just trying to get people out of the most public places we, were going from floor to floor and, we were talking to people about suggesting. That they get into a classroom. Was, it as robust, as if it was a lockdown, situation, absolutely not but, we, we accomplished, what we wanted to do as a law enforcement operation and. Again. Life safety number one we. Got that and I, appreciate your thoughts a because we understand, the vulnerabilities, within the building right and we. Had, that covered we got that. We. Understand, we're talking about some communication, issues and I think, I just don't want you to confuse the tuition okay. I. Was just curious now that you've clarified it now that makes sense to me yeah the only thing is is what you said earlier now, with that new kiosk you, said there was one person in there and they went off to do whatever it is they had to do are you gonna make it now where there's two people in there and nobody. And it has to be one person in there at all times if somebody has to go to the bathroom somebody. Have or whatever it is somebody has to be in that office before that person can go the bathroom that way there's always coverage, look, with. The staffing we have we, certainly, will try that but that's not I. Don't. Want to set you up for an unrealistic expectation. There I do have a limited. Staffing I'm, not we, need, to be we, are where we. Need to be sorry, but, you, can never have enough during an emergency. That's. Why we rely on Warwick in, Providence we rely on Providence, nobody. Has enough people during a big emergency so, but we, got it covered Monday we really did and. My. Thanks, to the workplace as well they were handling the Patriots send-off, at. The same time but we got great. Response from and supervisors. Canine, team. Very. Well, and. Then the I had, one more point but that's already been mentioned as far as like the hard phones go because I know Lex mentioned it and things like that because, somebody went and told me that they, were on I forgot what for they were on over, by where all the nursing. Classrooms. Are she, ran out of the hallway ran into the hall into the classroom, the professors, like what, are you doing and she went, and told her and she cuz, she had no clue what was going on so, next thing you know they went into lockdown and stuff like that so the issue is this like, we were saying teachers. Aren't checking their phones so as long as there's a way to, get these professors, while. They're in the middle of class to get this information out to them so that way when people start running into their classrooms, just to find a place to hide they're. Not taking off off balance. Either because there's, also the students in their classrooms, that need to do the same thing as well yeah, you're, absolutely right, and that's something that we really want, the system there's a new system to solve for because. We know professors, aren't looking at their phones where they're teaching they don't want their students looking at their phones while they're teaching and so, we need we need to address that to make sure that the communication, is all, through the building okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Sorry. While I initially, had two points some. Covered, my first point the second point is this I had several, students, approached me after the incident, about. Overheard, conversations. With on some of the campus police a lot, of them say I don't and this is a quote that I've heard from several, students, saying that's that I don't know what's the big deal it's probably just an undercover cop I don't.
Think That's something, that's really should, be appropriate, to be speaking out in the public as especially when tensions are high guess this is the first time something like this has happened on campus, I think, that really needs to be addressed, by, the way and I was wondering maybe, if you have any suggestions, on how to adjust that, I'll. Be glad to talk to you offline about that Charles. I'm. Not. Happy to hear that but yeah. Because. I mean I mean a lot of scared. I mean like you, have the. Faculty worries just equally. Sheltered. Place is very vague and I'm glad that you're going. Ahead and getting, more specifics, on that because shelter in place could mean you, know like you said a chemical, spill to an active shooter who knows what that actually meant it's special to know, there's. Been no communication, like. I haven't, received an email about or. Anything any, notification. Myself personally about, Monday, I haven't received any information not. Even a text about that I was, here luckily, I found a copy room I could talk into but. Like. I you, know we hear a lot of students saying about faculty only knew because they had that one student that was on their phone and said listen to a lesson so. I mean. It's. A bit of an issue but I'm glad that that's being resolved, I mean, we're always this, is this job is never done we're always going to work on an increasing. Tech, technology, so, we can get to everybody as many as we can it's never going to be a hundred percent, where, we more, ahead of where we were last year. I appreciate. The, president's efforts there and. I think this time next year will be even further ahead but does and that's why we're having these conversations, so. The. Only thing I would say also Charles, twofold, one. Kevin. Collins is very aware of what his what. He's accountable for and certainly. One of those things is to coach. And manage the team so, that the description that you outlined, if, it did happen doesn't happen again the. Second is, we. Will roll out a test rave we will send a clear a mail communication. To, all the students at the college with. A clear, protocol, for when the rave goes out if you don't receive it take. This action so, that going forward, ideally. We've got as close, to hundred, percent if you you know the challenges, right we've had a variety of processes, at. This college over a very long period of time, that depend, upon whether you're faculty staff, or a student we need a single process and get. Every single person who chooses to be enrolled. In that system so, then when if we have another day like Monday, that rave is getting to everybody, so. I know we have a line there but before I forget to make this point the, conversation. About, shelter-in-place. And. Lockdown. So, after, 9/11, there, was a massive, effort with. The federal. Government to use. Common. Language, throughout the country right so. We. Can change it but we're using language, that Homeland. Security uses, right those are the two common terms, shelter-in-place, and, lockdown, other. Places. If you look around websites they use those two terms to.
Mean The same thing. But. We want, to stay as much as possible and. You. Know we're open to changing, it we want to stay as much as possible, conforming. To the homeland security, vernacular. I think it's important, to you. Have, an ICS, system incident, command system a National Response Network, framework. That we're all using the same terminology but, as long as everyone's educated, on it and you know what it means when you get it I think that's the most important, thing and that's that's something we need to work on and sustain over time we, have an ever-changing population. Here and it. Has to be a sustained. Conversation, so. Perhaps some with, the rave alert definitely, maybe put an oh sorry I, don't, have to be like eating. A. Velar. I would maybe suggest, on. List of the definitions. Of what each mean so that way you know now we need you to know the definitions, before you get there like I said earlier in the. Well. I think we're gonna do in, terms of that is use a lot of different ways of educating people on the language well we'll do it in email we'll do it in video so, because for that exact reason to make sure that people feel very comfortable. With. The language so that the, rave alerts kind of like Twitter it's 140. Characters, so that when the one that comes people know what the responses, and we'll do it every semester so, if you're new to the college you're gonna you're gonna get that information, as well, thank. You. Hi. Good morning I was, wondering what, the plan, of action would be for future. Incidences. Like on educating, the staff because I was actually here on Monday and I, think. I, didn't, receive the rave alert the text because I signed up for that and I think they. Did a really terrible, job kind, of taking. Care of everything like things were executed, really poorly I was here, in the lower Commons, I had, no idea what to do I was a sitting duck like there was no communication there, was police here and I'm thankful nobody got hurt but it appeared that they just kind of hung out here and, yeah. We take. Aways out of this is that there's, some there was a glitch in signing up or there was some technical aspect, for, some people most people know but there was some. Issue that IT is working on resolving in a leak sir, speak. Better I. Think. The second is you know talk to your talk, to your fellow students talk to the student government I think it is going to be important to hear from you what, kind of training are you interested in having alright, so I would very much encourage you to connect, with with Charles and likes to see, how we can make that happen and and Sean and captain Collins will respond. Okay. Thank you and another, thing too. When. Would we be. When. Would they be updating, like the rave system should I um RIA. Should. I reset. That up put in my phone number again because I didn't. The notification. Okay. So. Here's what we, think that we know what the solution, is we we know what the problem in the solution, we want to make sure the solution is correct before we send everyone to to. Rave again so please look for communication, from us about, when that solutions, in place we hope it's going to be very, very soon. And a, marketing, and information technology. I started working on it right away so, look. For a communication, from us about. How. To ensure that your cellphone numbers in the rave system, and then. We'll follow up with the test yeah to test okay, thank you and just one more thing um just. Kind of going back to like the, talking's. Like the student government and the people on campus uh would. I speak, with them for I don't know training and like set up for these kind of lockdown situations. You, can come right to this man and we. I you know if I have a central take erase so far in this conversation it's we need to be far more deliberate.
With Engaging students, and responding. To what you're asking for so I am, very happy to go to departments. If department, heads out there student. Groups if you want to set something up I'd, rather do it as a group with. Large numbers of people I mean. It doesn't have to be a hundred but certainly not a one on one if, I. Can go toward a Pavan or some. Type of student group with Tim, or alia one of my stuff be more than happy to do that. Thank. You thank you. Good. Morning how. Are you doing today. So. I can I assume, that you can imagine I have multiple, questions for you but I've narrowed it down to just two. Still. Not doing her is, this better yeah there we go sorry, so, my, first question. Well first comes with a small, explanation I've been here for about three years now. And I just asked two ladies, at the same tale I was sitting at I didn't, ask how many years but I assumed for multiple, um. Within. The three years I've been here not once have I ever gone through something as minimal as a fire. Drill let, alone a lockdown drill a, stay in place drill so, my question is why. Do, we not do them and if we have to do them please correct me if I'm wrong but. Why are there so few and. To, further push my point also about talking, about these things if everyone. Who can answer this question the room raised. Their hand please how many of you know where your closest, emergency exit, is. How. Many of you know where the closest fire, alarm is. So. It proves that the information, seems to be a bit scattered so that's, my first question, yeah, you, know I've been here a year and a half and. The. President's, been here a little bit longer. Obviously. Both. Of us in our different professions, have upon. Getting here looked at the, systems and processes and, I determined. In. My area, that they needed to be some improvements, and I think, we listed a long list of them and embarked. On them it was purchasing. Equipment training. All. Sorts of stuff we can't accomplish this all overnight with. You we need more of these drills we need we're going to do them we. Were in the process of this Monday happened, it's not like we're. Just talking, about this because. Monday happened, it's that that's, not the case we've been working on this, Emergency. Response framework, training. Training. For senior, administration, training, for staff. And. And there's more to come my is like, I said this is a never-ending, job, trying to stay on top of stuff so we've had a lot in the pipeline we've, gone over the list with you I mean it's. When. We were talking. For this event. I'm, looking back I'm saying you know that's a lot of accomplishments of, the last year and we're.
Not There yet we got a lot more to do and we are going to be committed to testing the system and improving the system as best as possible but. So. We can expect improvement, on that absolutely. Yeah we've been improving the since, day one. So. My next question is, with. This event happening, does this bring back the question of arming campus police to the table. So. Again. Since I have. Been here we've. Made some dramatic improvements, right it takes time to do things like we've everyone, now is carrying, pepper right, less-lethal. Fantastic. Defense. Mechanism, helps, us defend ourselves helps, us defend you. The. Time involved in just getting there has, been a commitment. Getting. The equipment getting the training it's not something you can just roll out and and, and pass that equipment out. Tim, and i have also become instructors, for the. Ass baton. And. That trainings in, the process, of the next month or two we have to get everyone trained it's extensive, training for that, it's. Not something again you accomplish, overnight so I think. We were at now with, our less-lethal in, cooperation. With our local police departments. I think, we're in a, substantially. Substantially. Better position, that we were last year, ok. So if if. It's just a single word answer, is would, that be a yes or no does. That topic, come back to the table. Yeah. I'm happy to answer that question. We're, always going, to look at where the college is where, the state of Rhode Island is where our local police forces, are so, yes it's a dynamic issue, and. No. We have no. Intention at this point, to, arm our campus police thank. You. So. My. Question, is I know we already talked about students. Are able to come and ask security, about training for situations, like these is it, possible, for students, to make this mandatory for, students like such as during New Student Orientation. Since. School shootings are on the rise here in America, this is something, that students. Really should be prepared, for. Yeah. I agree, 100% and, we're looking, at again. A million. Ways to roll, out the training Student Orientation me, a great one, we're. Planning. On making that more, robust, on the next iteration but we've had again. A lot in the works here but that training is absolutely crucial I agree with it and it's got to be ongoing I think. It's a great recommendation. And I will looking, at student services we'll take it back to them and look at what we need to do even more of at orientation, thank you thank, you I have one more question is. It also possible for us to get some sort of alert when, I was in high school I had run hide fight training, and we, used something. Along the lines of Miss Jane please come to the main office is it, possible for us to get something like that here. In the building so. Maybe that's. Sorry, is it possible for us to use some sort of alert like I'm Miss. Jane please come to the main office like. A code word or something's, going on I. Think. We'd. Rather just communicate. And in an emergency situation I've. Been doing this for 35 yet, the.
Bigger The emergency, the simpler, you want to keep things and I understand what you're talking about but. Those. Code words is designed more for hospitals. And grammar. Schools, and, things of that nature to my understanding, you. Don't want to panic you have stay in place population, you can't possibly move, and the, last thing you want to do is panic those people but. The. Number one rule and there's a couple of emergency management guys in the, thing here that will agree. With me a firmness, that you want to keep it simple clear. Concise, simple. Communication the. Only addition I would make is captain. Collins earlier talked about with incident, command there is a protocol, right that has come out of FEMA and it is about standardizing. Language. So, at the end that the the clear, recommendation. Within, the post-secondary environment. Within colleges, is that you rely on that language and that's because, the incident, command the people that are leading the response need. To know what to do and the language will direct them to do that. Thanks. For the question. So. One more observation about, the, rave alert I had, a faculty member, who was in his office throughout. The entire situation. Received. Did not receive the first alert, received, the second, one and did not receive the third one so, in addition to those you know who are signed up not getting them there seems to be an intermittent, problem okay. Thank you, I spoke, to students. In my class yesterday about their experiences, and they raised a couple of points. The shelter-in-place, warning. Suggested, that they somehow, barricade. Themselves in the classroom, but. Of course the doors are, new electronic, doors don't allow individuals. To lock them right, so they can't lock the door so, they decided okay we're gonna push the desk against, the door and then realize the door opens outward, so. There was no way to protect. Themselves, in the classroom and then, on top of all of that of course we have great, walls of glass. So. In this, after, action, planning perhaps. Some thought could be given to how can we deal with. Great. Walls of glass yeah, so I think I'm gonna let captain Collins respond but I think it is important, to clarify two, following things if it had been an active shooter or an active, threat we would have gone in to lock down those doors would have been locked that's the first observation and, then the second, is with, the glass so, here we are with this building with.
The Sixth floor the very first place our Warwick police went was, to the sixth floor and I'll just turn it over to captain Collins Jeff yeah. In. The event of an active shooter situation, I really encourage everyone, a young lady that was just up there mentioned that, she, was training run hide fight it's, on our website I really. Would if, one, take away from this as everyone watched a six-minute, video, run. Hide fight it, tells you, how. To analyze. We you are we talked about this earlier but with another question we. You are there's, no reason, for you to stay in an indefensible space, if you determine it's indefensible right so, now Monday was not one of those things, that you know it we wanted you to stay in shelter in place we had police on the scene immediately. An active shooter scenario, if you determine, and. You. Determine this ahead of time certainly, you say this, is not where I want to be unless. You immediately, get trapped if the the. Bad guy happens to be in your hallway, then. You. Have to do what you have to do and again watch run hide foot that's, when you would barricade, into the best you can. But. If you have the opportunity to move to a more secure area, do, that. Absolutely. You're, not nobody's. Saying that you you, know you have the rate of self-preservation. Right, so, while the police are responding you, can take action and, one of those actions we encourage, you to, remember. I mentioned earlier situational, awareness be aware of your situation, be. Aware of your surroundings and, certainly. If you have the opportunity, at the recommendation. From. The federal, guidelines, all the way down to local polices. Find. A defensible, space if, you can I. Would. Be hard-pressed to, determine. A safer, place on the sixth floor, than. The classrooms. And. I do recognize that replacing. Glass windows, is unrealistic, but. Perhaps some, paper. Curtains. Something. That obscures, that view, thank. You Thanks I. Was. In the library, I was. In the library when this was happening and I. Was, in this Student Success Center, and. I was in that small area downstairs in, the back and I, got. The message saying, that there was a shooter. Stay, alert be calm and, there. Was a back door near, the Student Success Center and people were still walking in and out like nothing was going on so, got to me a question is there, really something happening, or there. Isn't so. After, the, incident they said everything's cleared up you can go out do, all your business I went, to the gymnasium. And, I. Spoke with one of the athletic. Directors, when, that's in charge, and, he said they weren't aware, that. There was a shooter going, or incident, going on at all so. He said there was 30 students, in the gym playing basketball and he had no wear case. Something happened nowhere to put them and. The. Door to the tunnel he, couldn't lock it in case if the person was coming by and then. I was thinking, that. Sliding, door. Downstairs. On the hill, that's. Always open. So. Say if I was that person I could just easily park on the side over there walk, into the gym and then. Do. It not. Saying I would but I'm just saying I'm, just thinking if, I was that person that. Door is open all the time and. There's. No one to check them for IDs saying this, is a student that goes here and it's. Just just brought me to attention I had to speak up about it, appreciate. I just want to clarify though, that the message, never said there was a shooter, the, message was very clear that the, police responding, investigating. A, person. That had a holstered, weapon. We. Wanted people to be aware of that. We're. Required, to let you know that as a potential incident. Again. In our mind that, it, did not certainly. Wasn't an active shooter situation so I don't, want to talk to different things so, in. The event of an active shooter situation it would have been a totally. Different response. In this, situation, again out of an abundance of caution we had police in, the building and. Going. Floor to floor until we could determine for a hundred percent certainty, as best, we could that it was not anything. Other than what we, believed it turned out to be so. Two different things let's not let's. Not confuse the two but I appreciate, your concerns I think yes I think you would have seen things and the people in the gymnasium. Would have seen things differently had it been an actual act of shooting. I have. Several. Comments, on the library. It, took multiple phone, calls it. Took multiple, phone calls to security, before we actually spoke. To someone about, having, the library, doors locked, and. I'm glad you mention that because one. Of the things we need to do and communicate, with people is during. An emergency, unless. You have an emergency we don't not want you to call dispatch, the.
Dispatcher In, any, size, organization. Is overwhelmed. And we'd, like to limit that to an emergency only so what we're looking for during that time period we're evaluating, this situation, one of the things we relied on a time had already gone by there's been no further calls but. You can't call dispatch and. Clog the emergency. Lines. Everybody. Security. In place whatever, we had over a hundred students, in the library, not to mention another dozen, or so on the, skybridge. Okay. Our. Mission, was to try, to keep those students, safe but. How. Can we keep them safe if they're free, to leave come, and go out of the library with, the door unlocked. I had three librarians, and this. Might sound melodramatic but, they put themselves in harm's way, blocking. A double, glass door to, prevent people from leaving and keeping. Unknown. People from coming in the library, and I, think that's a serious concern yeah. I hear, you so here's the difference between. You. As, a faculty, or. Staff, member, and your responsibilities, towards others at the college level versus. At. A grade school level and. It's. An important, distinction to make and and faculty, sometimes I have a hard time understanding that, you, really can't keep somebody from leaving right you can suggest it you can do your best to offer your advice you, can do your best to keep people as, safe as possible but. People. So in the future we should let people come and go and put themselves at risk or, let, the potential shooter come into the library I'm. Not saying that at all I'm just saying that you can't you can keep people from going again. I want, people to understand, Monday was not an active shooter I know, that's in everyone's mind we. Made it clear I think one of the texts said this is not an active shooter situation it, was out of an abundance of caution that we had the police respond, because, we wanted to be a hundred percent sure that nobody's, life is in jeopardy in. An, active shooter situation it, would have been totally different but even then I understand. What, you're saying but you. People. Are adults. And, if they make again. You watch the run hide fight video. Ten. People in a room five people could decide I'm staying right here the, other five want to say I feel, better moving, somewhere, else that's. A decision individuals. Can make and, that's, the proper decision, you. Can encourage people to do what you think is best you cannot, and and I understand, you have this angst about I'm, responsible for these students, but. Reality. Is yeah. If I might just two things if, it, it, it certainly, was, clear. To. Our police. That, this was not an active shooter it is, very clear to me that it was not clear to the community, so I I hear, it loud and clear and I, think a couple of things. No. One would have asked, for Monday to have happened but it did happen and the, learning that has come out of it right that there if you're sitting in this room right now we. Now understand, all of us there is a difference, when that rave comes, out and it says shelter, in place by.
Definition, That, means there. Is no active, shooter in this building that's the first part right so the difference, in language matters. And, the second, part is. Had. There been an active shooter or an, active, threat set aside and active - an active, threat, those, doors would have been locked no, one would have been able to get in or out it certainly, doesn't, solve, for, the facilities, and the glass and I take that point and we got to figure out what, is within our means to do to, try to mitigate that risk and. The. Last sort. Of ancillary, comment. Is that we have 6m agency exits, in. Between, college success and in the library. -. On the third - on the fourth floor - on the fifth floor not, all of those doors are locked from the outside, so, it's possible for someone to come in from the emergency, exit and none. Of the alarms, are active, so anyone can come and leave any of those areas and there'll be no notification. We're. Very familiar with the issues with the doors in the library we I think we're we've been working on it with the vendor and as, far as the alarms we know what the situation is with that well they till the doors eaten a what turned off yeah, well. Yeah. I, can. And I will connect about that thank you for bringing that to our attention. Good. Morning. Some, of most of my questions have been answered since, I've been standing here but. I just want you to know that I took, it personally, extremely. Extremely. Different. Than what you would have taken it as a. Police. Officer who knows. How to handle this I am, not only a faculty, I mean an employee but I have a son that is a student, here had, no idea what was going on took it to the extreme, my. Question, is now. That we know that the doors don't all lock and that. We've spent, quite a lot of money on having, the keyless, entry. Has. That been completed, with all the doors in the, College in this campus. I'm. Sorry I, just wanted to know if all the doors in this campus all are now coated. With that keyless, entry. So. I would say most of them you know were gone, okay so can say 95%. Of all right will we ever get to the point that, everybody. Will have to use, your. Card, to, get in access, to that, door whether, you be a student a faculty or. An employee. Well. We have different permissions for, different doors, correct. But you would still have to use wouldn't. Be open access to everybody, no, it would be that you would use your card, to. Gain access to that depending, on what kind of code you have yes. And and the only people that would have the card or faculty strings, and how close are we that you getting to that point. Well. I, I'm. Sorry I'm and maybe I'm misunderstanding is, the idea that we don't, not, everyone, has a card no, no what I'm saying he is access. To, the. Doors is an open access to most of the doors they don't lock they don't close anybody, can come in come out except, for certain areas, of the college so. That was a problem, with. On Monday, what happened a lot. Of the doors, didn't lock because to them it wasn't a lockdown right, to, us it seemed, it was an issue because the doors were easily. Accessed, to anybody who could wanted to come in so. In my case it was an open, area, so I had to find a different area, to go into so. My question is is if we have. Our nice, little, IDs. And we. Have now, the nice doors, are. We gonna get to the point that everybody is going to have to use an ID to. Get into a door, I. Guess. The way I would think about that is we're, always gonna have to balance access. For people throughout the building with, that security, and it, may, mean that we need to look at that more because, when, I think about it because we also have concerns about. Accessibility. So if.
In. Terms of access so the key cards are kind of difficult if you have. Some, kind of a disability that makes it hard for you to kind of bend over so we're trying. To balance that and I and. I appreciate. Your point, because. There may be times that we need to reevaluate that, but. The door system, is something that we're continually, working to improve upon for everybody and so, thank you for that feedback okay and just, another point it's. Just I just want to make sure not so much myself because I always feel as a parent I'm not gonna worry about me I'm gonna worry about my child I just. Want to make sure that faculty, know what to do in any, situation. That as I'm. Sitting. Standing. In that little two-by-four, bathroom. Locked down thinking, that I can. Think that that, professor, has got my child's, best interest, or actually. I know that they probably do, but, they know what to, do and, we want her child to know what to do and not realize. At. Least have a sense of. Relax. We're. Okay okay. So, just to make sure that everybody, every department, knows exactly, where to go what to do in every. Situation that's. All I want, if. Anything, comes out of that just to know that you know even department, heads have one person to, say okay. Guys this is what we do you know, because. It, was a mess that's. All thank. You I think we have time for one more question, we're just at ten I. Don't. Have a question all my questions have been answered already I just have a concern like, the. Other student brought up it. May be mandatory. For everybody to get some sort, of training for, us as a staff and faculty our. Professional. Development day is coming and instead, of making it optional to choose a workshop, I think, it should be mandatory for all of us. It. Was a scary situation of, course not, knowing is scary for everybody, it's just concerning, that we, found. A nice place a safe, place to stay but, some students were after. This stuff. Find, out what's going on students. Were dismissed from their classes and I. Understand, we are not in high school in a mental school but you can tell the kids you stay right there and don't move we. Are all adults here you cannot tell the students stay, here don't move you, cannot command them to do something they are all adults and they are free to do whatever they want the only concern is once. They find out what's, going on students. Were dismissed from their classes instead of giving them an option this, is what we could do stay, here turn off the lights be quiet turn off your cell phones off do something, rather than say nothing's. Going on going. With your lives. Thankfully. Nothing it was nothing seriously. But it is a concern what if, something. Had been serious. And these. Students, were dismissed and. Going. Got, to you your. Thing you know so that's kind of scary so, I thickened. The um what, else the other student says maybe, if the training should not be just, for students, for, all of us and, on a mandatory, basis, so I think.
Personally, That the professional development, day is a great opportunity for all of us thank. You thank you for the feedback and thank you everyone. Anyone. Who has questions, that, didn't get addressed I'd encourage you to come speak, with us now and, please. Keep the feedback coming you. Will receive, communication. Out of captain Collins's, office and out of marketing and communications, about the. Rave the steps, we've taken and, then the rollout of the testing, thank you all.
2018-02-09