Merced, Fresno incidents shine light on campus violence, security

A violent rampage at UC Merced and threats of gunplay at Fresno State earlier this month are prompting universities to reassess the resources and policies in place to ensure safety and security on their campuses, and a school security training is being planned in Angels Camp.

Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium will be delivering a Department of Homeland Security-certified course in crisis management for school-based incidents in an all-day training Dec. 21 at Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp. The course is free for first responders and school administrators with registration by Dec. 7.

At UC Merced, a student stabbed four people with a hunting knife Nov. 4 before being shot and killed by campus police. Two days earlier, a social media post attributed to a California State University, Fresno, student threatened that a shooting would take place that afternoon. Investigators made an arrest within hours.

Such violence or threats of such are rare at both campuses, as well as at California State University, Stanislaus. In an email sent out after the Merced incident, Stanislaus State President Joseph Sheley gave crisis response information and urged students to update their emergency contact information and check that their cellphone number is in the StanAlert texting system.

“We have in place a behavioral intervention team that seeks to review concerns about individuals should problematic behavior suggest the need,” Sheley wrote, adding that the university’s Police Department or the vice president of human resources are the folks to contact.

“However, the incidents in question appear more often to occur without overt signal or warning. With that in mind, I ask all of you – students, faculty, staff and administrators – to take a few minutes to reflect on how prepared you are should such an event occur here,” the email continues.

It includes a link to the university emergency preparation Web page, which has an evacuation map, family disaster planning resources and links to more information about specific threats. In the event of hazards or outages, the campus emergency hotline, 877-782-6411, will have recorded messages and updates. There is even a bomb threat checklist asking attributes of the caller’s voice – nasal? slurred? – and when, where, what, why questions to ask.

The university trains regularly for a range of emergency situations, and an active-shooter training exercise had already been planned for December. University officials have been meeting with campus departments and student groups, giving training on what to do in an active-shooter situation. Shelter-in-place drills are held regularly and will expand into instructional areas in February.

“Last week’s incident at UC Merced reminded all of us of the need to remain aware at all times about situations that can become volatile,” said campus spokesman Tim Lynch on Monday.

All of this was in place before the UC Merced incident, he added, “though the recent series of attacks on campuses across the country has informed our thinking.”

For Fresno State President Joseph Castro, the takeaways from the week were these:

▪ Social media was a good tool to quickly spread the news of the shooting threat and subsequent arrest of the suspect. But people not fully engaged in social media can get only some information and that can cause panic. Students and staff need to sign up for the Bulldog Alert system.

▪ More officers are needed, and Fresno State will be boosting its ranks from 20 campus police to 25.

▪ Universities, unlike elementary and secondary schools, are meant to be open. So guarding them against threats will remain a challenge.

Awareness of shootings and other violence at high schools and colleges across the country has grown steadily since two students shot and killed 13 people and wounded 24 at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999. This year alone, at least 11 shooting cases have been reported at colleges and universities nationwide, resulting in 20 deaths and injuries to 28 people.

“The situation on Monday (at Fresno State) and the situation at UC Merced are obviously reminders of the complex world that we’re living in,” Castro said Friday, as the atmosphere on his campus began to return to a sense of calm and normalcy. “These are the kinds of things that university presidents worry about, and we take actions to ensure that we’re as prepared as we can be for those.

“And if they do occur, we do the very best we can to address the situation and then learn from these experiences,” he said.

At Valley campuses, violent incidents are rare and most often tied to sexual assaults. A U.S. Department of Education crime database shows from 2012 through 2014, Fresno State reported no aggravated assaults and 10 forcible sex offenses. At UC Merced during the same period, the university reported seven forcible sex offenses and no aggravated assaults. Stanislaus State reported one aggravated assault, three robberies and 10 forcible sex offenses.

On-campus violence at U.S. colleges and universities is nothing new. From the 1900s through 2008, there were at least 272 incidents of targeted violence affecting 218 higher-education institutions, with the number of cases growing in each decade since the 1950s, according to a 2010 report jointly issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education.

Those cases resulted in the deaths of 281 people – including at least 190 students and at least 72 employees – and injuries to 247 others. Those casualties don’t count the assailants themselves, including 71 who took their own lives and 10 who were killed by police during or after their assaults.

Castro said Fresno State conducts ongoing assessments of its practices for potential safety emergencies, but acknowledged that the recent cases in the Valley provide an impetus for yet another look at how university officials respond to dangers.

“I can tell you, we’ve learned some things from what happened on Monday, and we all will learn from what happened at UC Merced,” he said. “I think it’s really important, whenever these situations occur, wherever they occur around the nation, that we learn from them. That positions us better for any potential risk that may occur in the future.”

Campus safety and security are concerns for the entire 23-campus California State University system, Castro said, as well as for the 10-campus University of California system. “It’s on the agenda almost every time the CSU presidents meet, and it’s often a topic for the board of trustees,” Castro said. “It’s an opportunity for presidents to share what they’ve learned from their experience with incidents on their campuses … and how together we can best use practices that minimize risk.

“Each of these incidents has its own unique set of circumstances, but I think there are themes that one can learn from,” he added. “The idea is that we can minimize our risk and drive it as close to zero as possible, (but) it’s a very complex world that we live in.”

This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Merced, Fresno incidents shine light on campus violence, security."