Imagine a chilly Monday morning at CSU East Bay, the first day of Spring quarter. It is 10:30 a.m. and everything seems normal. Then, out of nowhere, a student who you have not seen in quite some time charges onto campus and does the unthinkable: he opens fire, killing seven of his former classmates and injures three more.
That imaginary situation became reality at Oikos University, a one-building evangelical Christian college in an industrial park in Oakland. Monday’s shooting at Oikos is “one of the deadliest campus attacks in California history,” according to local media outlets.
According to the Oakland police, the suspect in custody, One L. Goh, 43, a South Korean national, was a nursing student who had been teased over his English during his time at Oikos. He was said to be hunting for a female administrator who refused to refund his tuition but resorted to shooting other students when he could not find her.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, nine students instinctively locked themselves inside the classroom to save themselves from the mayhem at hand. The details of Oikos’ emergency protocols and procedures are not clear.
This situation led the staff of The Pioneer to wonder about the emergency procedures and evacuation protocols in place on our own campus, understanding that situations like this can happen anywhere, anytime.
An evacuation plan for CSUEB is available online, yet how many of our students are aware of it, let alone have actually read and reviewed it?
While we recognize there is no absolute or clear way to truly prevent an unfortunate incident like Oikos, now more than ever our university needs to communicate this protocol to students so they are better prepared and informed on how to deal with a situation of this nature.
More importantly, students need to acknowledge the gravity of Oikos, not only because of the lives regrettably lost to violence, but that any public institution is subject to the unthinkable, and thus need to take it upon themselves to be informed on safety.
Research completed by The Pioneer shows CSUEB has taken numerous steps to plan for a wide range of disaster and emergency situations.
According to University Police Department (UPD) Chief James Hodges, the campus previously purchased a verbal alert system that will be placed in Meiklejohn Hall in addition to the text and email alert systems that students already receive, unless a student has chosen to opt-out of the alerts.
Hodges says UPD is also planning on teaching CSUEB community members how to defend themselves through different classes when faced with situations such as domestic violence, and even in the case of an on-campus shooter.
Hodges also stressed that if students see anything suspicious or see anyone that is acting out of the ordinary to report it and to not be afraid to do so.
We at The Pioneer applaud UPD for taking steps to protect and serve the campus, as they should. It is, however, imperative that students be informed about the choices and safety options available to them in the event of a campus emergency, and thus we urge CSUEB students to take it upon themselves to be informed and to be prepared.
In the last year there have been two mass murders on Bay Area campuses — Monday’s killing spree at Oikos and the murder of three students at San Jose State University in 2011. With better access to information about our safety procedures, we can take steps to do our best to prevent tragedy here.
