Following the Feb. 13 mass shooting at Michigan State University, many Michigan colleges and universities are reevaluating their security protocols, according to a survey conducted by the Detroit News.
College campuses are more challenging to secure than K-12 schools, notes Jason Russell, SEC founder and president and a former Secret Service agent.
“They are larger, busier, host classes and events throughout the day and evening and often have people living in nearby dormitories,” Russell told the Detroit News.
“From a day-to-day perspective, their police departments and their security departments have a lot of space to cover and maybe don’t have the amount of manpower and resources to do that. Certainly, to have security in every building at a place like Michigan State would be pretty cost-prohibitive.”
To help make campuses safer, Russell recommends a few key strategies. Most importantly, universities should ensure they can alert people on campus to danger fast and inform people of what to do. Universities also can reduce the number of unlocked entrances, enhance video surveillance on open entrances, lock classrooms or require identification badges to open doors.
According to the Detroit News survey, academic and administrative buildings on most Michigan campuses are left unlocked during business hours.
While Russell notes a motivated attacker will find an avenue for violence, schools can make it harder for shooters to execute their plans. The real problem, according to Russell, is with the attackers themselves. As a member of the Michigan School Safety and Mental Health Commission, he said it’s important to reach out to kids who are having trouble with their support networks while they are in K-12 schools and to intervene so they don’t develop the kinds of personal crises that can lead to violence.
As a Michigan State alumnus, father of an MSU senior and former Lansing police officer, Russell is personally and professionally tied to the East Lansing shooting.
“I think it just reinforced that what I’m doing matters and it’s important,” he said. “I want to continue to make sure that parents don’t have to experience this situation as much as they do right now.”
Read the full subscriber-exclusive Detroit News article here.