What to do if there is an active shooter on campus

Daniel McGuire,
Staff Writer

On March 14 at approximately 5:20 p.m., Fremont police fired upon a vehicle after the driver rammed into them, injuring the two officers. During this time, the University Village, located at 25400 Carlos Bee Blvd., was issued a shelter-in-place warning that was lifted later that night, according to the East Bay Times.

In the event of an on-campus shooter, California State University, East Bay has two methods it employs to warn the students of any crisis: a mass email sent to the entire student body and an AlertMe system that sends a text message warning to all students who sign up for the service.

In the event of an active shooter, the nationally recognized protocol is composed of three options to be chosen according to the situation: run, hide or fight. If students hear a gunshot, they are encouraged to run away from the potential danger in the safest way possible, according to Lieutenant Omar Miakhail of the University Police Department.

If that option is not available, students should find a place to hide that is difficult for the shooter to locate. Miakhail told The Pioneer, if both running and hiding are not possible, “let’s say, it’s an imminent threat to you, at that point, there’s no other way to put it, it’s life or death,” students are told to fight back, either throwing items, rushing them or using any method with the intent of incapacitating the shooter.

While rushing an active shooter may seem like an unrealistic method of defense, it is nationally practiced and used by the FBI. However, it should only a tactic of last resort, if running and hiding become nonviable options. Miakhail continued, “We are also looking, always at ways at improving the safety in the classrooms, in the buildings, a different combination of methods.”

Miakhail emphasized the fact that they do not want to fully elaborate to publications what the university’s response to an active shooter would be. “Only because, at the same time that we want to share as much information as possible, I don’t also want the same person that, maybe has evil intentions, reading a newspaper article and understanding the police tactics.”