School Shooter at ASU?

Campus officials announced via email and the web site of Appalachian State that an armed gunman was seen near campus Monday afternoon. Given the fact that buildings were locked down on campus and classes were canceled Monday night, as well as due to the lack of important information in the campus announcements, the logical implication was that a “school shooter” may be loose on campus.

As shown in the screen capture of the ASU web site, the ASU announcement simply said: “An armed gunman was seen in the area of Appalachian South Apartments/ Hill Street. Police are on the scene.” Details of the offender's description were provided, but no context was provided.

Simultaneously, as shown in the following screen capture of the web site of the Watauga Democrat, readers learned that “A robbery attempt late Monday afternoon led to a lock down on the Appalachian State campus and police are still looking for a fugitive gunman. Around 3 p.m., ASU student Matthew Haney came home to his apartment on Hill Street behind the Holmes Convocation Center to find a masked man trying to steal his television. Haney said the gunman wore a black mask, black Pink Floyd T-shirt, dark jacket, red and green tennis shoes and blue jeans. The gunman pointed a small, black pistol at Haney and both men fled. The gunman ran into the woods and Haney drove quickly to the apartment's management office to make a police report.”

Assuming the report in the Watauga Democrat is accurate, this is really just a burglary gone bad (it is technically a robbery since the offender reportedly had a gun, but the offender's intent clearly was not to hurt anyone). Further, that the criminal “ran into the woods” to escape is consistent with a non confrontational offender such as a burglar rather than a confrontational offender such as a violent criminal).

Imagine this then – a man stealing a television caused ASU to cancel classes and post warnings about a potential gunman on campus. It also led to media helicopters over campus, broadcasting stories of a potential gunman on campus at Appalachian State University on national news (e.g., CNN), as well as state and regional news (e.g., Charlotte). News accounts showed aerial footage of the campus (as if this adds anything whatsoever), even though literally nothing was going on below.

The alert was subsequently lifted, and yet users of the ASU campus were never notified by the ASU emergency alert system that all of this started with a reported burglary. The following screen capture shows the announcement of the cancellation of the warning.

Meanwhile, people all over town were reporting seeing a person matching the description of the supposed gunman, only he was not walking around with a gun. The following screen capture from the Watauga Democrat's blog reports citings at the campus Chic-fil-A and King Street in front of Macado's.

As it turns out, the whole thing was just a hoax, as shown below. In spite of his 9/11 call to the police and this video report to the media, the young man reportedly made the whole thing up so he would not have to explain to his landlord why his front door was broken (so, hey, why not say an armed burglar did it???).

No blame can be placed on ASU officials for their response. First, they did not know it was all a hoax. Second, after the shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, the safe thing to do is to take all appropriate precautions. However, while I understand and applaud university officials taking a potential campus shooter seriously, they simply need to do a better job of reporting all the relevant facts to campus users. A burglary gone bad does not make a campus shooter. By providing a little more (important) information, university employees and students could have felt more assured that there was really nothing to worry about. Further, we could have kept from contributing to the near hysteria nationally about school shootings.

An editorial published in the Watauga Democrat agrees with my conclusion that the university should have provided more information. It reads:

"ASU alert system passes a real-life test"

"Thankfully, the presence of a gunman (now revealed to be hoax) near the Appalachian State campus Monday ended with no injury and no violence.

"It could have been so much worse but the fake incident did have a positive side in that it provided the university with a real-life chance to deploy its lockdown system.

"Following the (now false) report of the gunman, who fled from a Hill Street apartment near the Holmes Convocation Center, campus officials declared the lockdown and sealed off campus in a professional manner which should be commended.

"Within minutes, faculty, students, staff and the general public were made aware of the “threat” without relying on scare tactics or any whiff of fear-mongering.

"Ironically, Monday’s incident happened on the same day ASU police chief Gunther Doerr announced the addition of a new wireless, emergency-alert notification service.

"The service, Appstate-Alert, will allow officials to send emergency messages using text messaging, e-mail and voice mail. The service is explained, as well as a convenient timeline explanation of alerts at the university’s emergency Web site (www.emergency.appstate.edu). The site provides user-friendly instructions covering an impressive amount of contingencies. Someone at ASU takes preparedness pretty seriously.

"That’s not to say there’s not room for improvement.

"If officials could have done anything better, it would have been to inform the public about the nature of then apparent crime — that the alert spawned from a bumbled burglary attempt, not a crazed shooter on a rampage. All the public knew was that a gunman had allegedly been sighted. They didn’t know why he was armed. There are also reports of some miscommunication around campus buildings but again, the lockdown seemed to be handled smoothly overall.

"Although it’s a shame that the system was apparently misused, the cold reality is that the same possibility of a campus shooting like last year’s deadly attack at Virginia Tech or the more recent one at Northern Illinois also exists in our mountain town.

"It’s nice to know ASU takes these incidents seriously and is willing to respond in a quick, effective manner — with a slight learning curve — using all available technology.

"Hopefully, ASU’s first lockdown will be its last but at least the public can now be assured the championship mentality found across campus can also be found in something as mundane but no less important as emergency planning.

"It looks like we have that pretty well locked down with a little room to grow."

The only thing I take issue with is the statement that "Within minutes, faculty, students, staff and the general public were made aware of the "threat' without relying on scare tactics or any whiff of fear-mongering."

Without scare tactics of fear-mongering? Clearly the entire media coverage of this event is about fear. Do you really think the news media would have sent up helicopters to Boone and interrupted live coverage on CNN for a TV thief?

I have this to say to the regional and national media -- shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame (infinite shame) on you! Your coverage of this alleged burglary gone bad/what turned out to be a hoax literally did nothing but make us all more afraid. Congratulations.