SU Police working to prevent campus shootings

Fatal shootings on college campuses are a disturbing thought. In the United States, it’s a troubling reality. It’s happened three times just this week.

Lieutenant Brian Waller, the associate chief of police says, “Typically the individual committing the act has a connection to the place. It’s a targeted act of violence.”

Lieutenant Brian says Salisbury University students have been indirectly affected by the recent wave of campus shootings.       

He continues, “We’re seeing a kind of angst and concern and it that’s way whenever there’s a newsworthy incident.”  

However, Lieutenant Waller is also finding that many are focused on what to do after an event has happened. Apparently, that’s not the right way to go about it.

Lieutenant Waller explains, “If that is our focus, our main focus, our sole focus, then we’ve lost the game.”

Lieutenant Waller says the focus of SU police is to prevent and mitigate first. They’ve created teams who identify behavior that could be threatening or out of the ordinary for someone’s character. One team is for alarming behavior within the student body; it’s called coordinated response. The other team is for faculty and staff. It’s called behavioral assessment.

Lieutenant Waller says this effort all started after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when the community knew there was an issue with that shooter, but didn’t properly communicate in an effort to prevent the incident.

He continues, “Each one of those pieces of the puzzle alone doesn’t really tell you a whole lot but when you bring everyone’s piece of the puzzle to the table, some bells and whistles should go off.”   

However, that can’t happen without people bringing information to the table. Lieutenant Waller says there’s always a way to remain anonymous and reporting something suspicious is crucial to safety.

He goes on, “Send us some information. Let us know so that we can make sure we’re on top of it.”