Wednesday, October 5th, 2016 was a very scary day for both the students and staff members of The University of Colorado at Boulder. Usually seen as a relatively safe space, on that particular day, the only word that could be used to describe the events that ensued at the University would be chaotic. Around 9:30 that morning, both students and faculty received a text message and/or email from the emergency alert system, informing them that they should take caution because there was an individual running around with a machete near the Champion Center, a newly built training center for athletes on the east side of main campus. That was it, no tips and tricks for lockdown procedures or a description of the suspect. Just a simple text message. For those of us who weren’t anywhere near that side of campus, we simply laughed about it, because the entire situation just seemed a bit ridiculous, not to mention we hadn’t even had our morning coffee. A few of us even thought it was a joke.
About 10 or 15 minutes after the first text message, just as classes were preparing to dismiss, we received an additional text message, informing us that the suspect had been fatally shot by the university’s police department. Aside from feeling relieved, this message left many students feeling a bit uneasy. When the university put out an official statement on what occurred that morning, there were comments from students and parents alike wondering why they didn’t simply shoot the suspect in the leg(s) to deter them since it wasn’t as though they had a gun. While a machete is certainly a dangerous weapon, one would think that there would be a way to stop the suspect without anybody getting hurt or killed. While I do agree with this sentiment, I also appreciate the fact that the police department put themselves at risk while working hard to ensure the safety of students.
After this event, it seemed as though things would be fine for the rest of the day, but unfortunately that was not the case. Just as the University Memorial Center (UMC) was filling up with students and preparing for the bustling lunch rush, the students and staff received yet another ominous text message from the emergency alert system, informing them that there was potentially an active shooter within the vicinity of the UMC. In the aftermath of that text message, students were essentially “fleeing for their lives”, leaving laptops and backpacks abandoned for up to 24 hours. I’ve heard stories of students hiding and barricading bathroom and classroom doors, professors turning out lights, and even the beloved Starbucks on the Hill locking its doors and going into lockdown mode.
Students and faculty at CU Boulder aren’t given any instruction on what to do in the event of a shooter, so, in an emergency situation such as this one, there’s not much to do besides panic. You would think that in a state like Colorado, where the shooting at Columbine happened just a little over a decade and a half ago, schools would want to give their students and staff some training on how to proceed should they ever find themselves in this situation, but unfortunately, CU Boulder has dropped the ball in this aspect. On this day, students were left to wait and wonder whether they were going to go home to see their parents again.
About an hour after the situation started, students received two text messages back-to-back: one, letting them know that after the police ran to the scene they determined that the active shooter situation was all clear, and a second text message alerting students to proceed with caution around the UMC area because there was still an active harmer situation occurring. This was enough to make many professors and teaching assistants cancel their classes and recitations for the duration of the day.
Ultimately, aside from the suspect in the machete incident, nobody on the CU Boulder campus was physically injured on this day. Mentally and emotionally, the overall safe space vibe that our beautiful campus once had has now been tarnished thanks to a chaotic series of events. Although no one was hurt and there wasn’t an actual shooter, there could be at any point in time. We pay a lot of money to go to this school, and although this could happen anywhere, it would be nice to see some of the money that they invest in football programs go towards creating either a mandatory or optional training program for students to learn about how to handle emergency situations.
