English 111
July 26, 2013
In my opinion, I think that we have many ways that we can prevent school shootings from getting carried away like the Virginia Tech massacre did. When I say carried away I mean in the sense of not having 30 people killed. One way we can prevent this shooting from happening is to set up security cameras all over the school. According to the Review Panel, “After Cho Seung-hui shot two people at the West Ambler Johnson hall the police reported to the university emergency Policy Group that the “person of interest” probably was no longer on campus (144).” If we had cameras at the university, we would have known that Cho was still in fact on school grounds. After Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnson Hall, the press said that, “Cho went on a shooting spree that continued in a class-room building and eventually claimed 33 lives, including his own (151).” The cameras could have helped locate Cho’s position and help the cops to find him faster.
According to the review panel presented to Governor Kaine, “The VTPD erred in not requesting that the Policy Group issue a campus-wide notification that two persons had been killed and that all students and staff should be cautious and alert (144).” If we would have had an intercom system we could have announced after the first shooting that there was in fact a shooter on campus and to evacuate school grounds immediately. We also could have given more information as to where the shooter was and where he was headed so then students could avoid him. I also feel that security officers should have PDA’s. The PDA’s would help a lot when something like this happens. “You’ve got to be way ahead of the game, so to speak, expect what may be coming” said by Jeffrey McMurray (149). If officers have GPS’s on their PDA’s then when something like this happens and police split up to find the gunman and we can see where each police officer is and when they find him we can know the location and find the gun man faster. This follows in to my next point. When the officers are given these PDA’s they should have remote access to the schools surveillance cameras. According to several students, “before the shooting began, Cho looked into several classrooms (3).” We should have had cameras then so we