The question of limiting access to classrooms
Now that I can recollect memory of the day of the shooting, one memory in particular pops out from earlier in the day. This memory has me pondering campus security.
Earlier in the day, I had a class in one of the lecture halls in the Art building. As with the lecture halls in Cole, the emergency exit door is located on the right side of the stage (from the point of view of the audience).
I have two friends in that class, and I usually walk with the one and we meet the other when we arrive at class.
We could not figure out why she was so late that day. We figured that maybe she had chosen not to come, and did not bother to text us. When she finally appeared and sat down, she had told us that she’d been trying to call us to open the emergency door. Turns out, she came in through the back but the emergency door was locked from the outside.
That similar “emergency” door, that is supposed to be locked from the outside and unlocked from the inside (auditorium), was where the shooter supposedly entered our classroom in Cole Hall.
This brings me to my question of the consistency of security on campus. If Kirty was unable to enter though the so-called emergency door, how could the shooter magically appear though the same-purposed door in Cole? Why was that door unlocked? Is it supposed to always remain locked? (Answers to come from NIU)
Some may argue that him coming in through that little door on stage was a blessing because it left the other exits wide open for escaping. Part of the reason for the mass destruction of the Virginia Tech shootings was the fact that the shooter came in through the only door, literally cornering his victims not allowing any means of escape. Obviously not all shootings are similar, so certain circumstances are more so highlighted depending on the situation; such as the set-up of the class.
The point of the emergency exit being unlocked to those in the auditorium is for means of escaping in an EMERGENCY. So if he had come in though the one of the two main doors, that’d still leave two other doors to exit. Hence, no one would be left cornered.
Imagine if that little door was locked. Numerous potential situations could have deterred him from taking part in his rampage, or at least would have warned us more for the danger to come.
If the door was locked and he was destined to open fire on our particular classroom, that would require him to walk all the way around to the front of Cole to get in the main doors leading to the back of the auditorium. By the time he had realized that he had to walk all the way around, it could have been too late for him to open fire because class could have been dismissed. After all, class is sometimes dimissed early.
As a means of a warning something was going to happen, with a class beginning at 2 p.m. and ending at 3:15 p.m., at 3 p.m.(give or take a few minutes), it is highly unusual for a student to just come into class. In lecture halls, opening and closing of those two main doors on the right and left side of the projector room cause quite a distraction. This would have caused many heads to turn, giving more reaction time to duck and take cover.
Another mean of warning, would be if he was forced to pry open the door if it had been locked. Yes, he could have busted the door open, but obviously the tremendous sound would immediately cause confusion and students (and the professor) to become cautious. Every little noise in and around the lecture hall echoes. So any way he could have tried to get the door open if it were to be locked would most likely cause a scene and alert the class.
But no, the shooter opened that door with ease giving no warning and little time for anyone in that auditorium to react.
So why was that door unlocked? Was it just that day? Are the emergency exits required to be locked 24/7? Is it campus policy for those emergency doors to always remained locked to
the outside yet accessible to those within the lecture hall?
If you were at or nearby Cole Hall on February 14 please let us know if you noticed any sort of suspicious activity near the emergency exit door.
Tags: , campussecurity
February 26th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I actually recall having a similar thought earlier in the week of the shooting. Throughout my MWF schedule, I would routinely walk through Cole Hall from the Watson/DuSable area to get to and from class and work. I remember walking past the “Preview Room” door while I was walking one day and having taken a theatre class in that same room and having gone through that entrance in the past, I remember thinking to myself if the door was locked and how unsafe it would be if it wasn’t. I didn’t check to see at the time if the door was locked, since it was just a mere thought while I was walking to class. It just seems so eerie. But this does raise some interesting questions about safety on campus?