April 25, 2007—Although the shootings at Virginia Tech that killed 33 students and faculty members left lingering questions as to whether the university responded appropriately to the situation, many security insiders voiced support of the difficult decisions campus police and administrators made.
According to a special Security Director NewsPoll, 73 percent of respondents reported that the Virginia Tech tragedy propelled their security departments to take another look at its organization’s security and crisis management plans.
“Stakeholders will have discussions about the state of emergency preparedness, go over Securing open campuses like Virginia Tech has been a challenge for many security professionals. In the survey, 66 percent of readers said they do not think open environments can be effectively protected from such incidents.
“Open environments cannot be adequately protected, only managed through emergency response systems,” said Ron Woodson, director of security and safety for the Center of Forensic Psychiatry. “It would do more harm to even think that an open environment can be protected. It would be a very bad illusion to create such a false sense of security.”
Security Director is a business newspaper for security directors. For more on the poll, visit the Web site.
