A memorial service was held at Palo Alto College on April 23 to honor those lives that were lost in the Virginia Tech tragedy.
Photo by Anita Soliz

With a rash of violence breaking out in U.S. schools, what plan does Palo Alto have to ensure the safety of its students?

Sophomore Communications major Michelle San Miguel said, “If something happened right now, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

She is not alone; many students haven’t the slightest idea where to turn or what to do if someone were to step onto campus to inflict harm.

Most college campuses have a safety plan in place. Palo Alto has one, but last fall Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Adolfo Barrera, became aware that the college’s safety plan had not been updated since 2002. Many safety committee members are either no longer employed here, or they now work in a different building than the one they were assigned to oversee.

In order to keep the campus safe and organized, the task of updating the plan was given to Director of Distance, Extended Education and Community Outreach Robert Garza, who put it on the executive committee agenda.

“In the wake of what’s happened at Virginia Tech, every college and university is reevaluating their plan,” said Garza.

If a disaster were to occur here, campus police would send out an e-mail alerting faculty and staff, similar to the failed e-mails sent out at Virginia Tech that have received severe criticism. Barrera suggested that perhaps an intercom system could be an option, like the system that has already been implemented by the University of Memphis and the University of Texas at Austin.

Barrera and Garza said that, the new plan will be released by the end of the spring semester, and students can access it on Palo Alto’s web site. The plan will be posted in multiple sites to catch the attention of all faculty, staff and students “In light of what happened at Virginia Tech, I think it would be prudent for all of us to take a second look at the safety plan,” said Barrera.

Violence in schools is nothing new. Despite the public’s perception, violence in schools has seen a dramatic drop since the 1990s, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Incidents like fights, assault, rape, carrying a deadly weapon and murders have all declined.

The Virginia Tech massacre came during the same week as the Columbine shooting eight years ago, and a little more than six months after the schoolhouse shootings that took place in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where a man opened fire and took the lives of five young Amish girls and injured several others.

The Virginia Tech massacre is now the deadliest in modern U.S. history, surpassing the University of Texas’s 1966 shooting, when Charles Whitman, a student at UT, opened fire from atop the campus’ 27-story tower, killing 13 people and injuring 31 others.

In a letter of condolence to Virginia Tech, William Powers Jr., President of the University of Texas at Austin, said, “The greater challenge in emergencies is with individuals not knowing personally what to do if they find themselves in a threatening situation or if they have noticed a significant, strange change in someone’s behavior.”

Since the VT shooting, many questions have arisen as to how this situation could have been avoided. Others have questioned if today’s schools are equipped to handle students with mental problems. Dr. Russ Federman, director of counseling and psychological services at the University of Virginia, said that research suggests that the mental health of students plays a big part in why some students snap. His study revealed that 94 percent of students surveyed reported feeling overwhelmed by the things that were expected of them, 50 percent said were so depressed that it was hard to function, 9 percent considered suicide and 1.3 percent actually committed suicide. These statistics came to light when the U.S. Senate convened a week after the VT shootings to discuss colleges’ and universities’ mental health resources, safety plans and communication systems.

Sergeant Ben Peña, a police officer for the A.C.C. campuses, suggests that everyone take a look at the campus police website.

“While no police department can prevent this situation, we are trained and have agreements with the San Antonio Police Department in order to deal with these situations,” said Peña

If you do find yourself in an emergency situation, please contact campus police at (210) 208-8099. For non-emergencies, please call (210) 921-5211.