Vulnerability exposed in today’s open campuses

updated 9:44 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2008

Bloody students fleeing in terror. Bodies carried out on stretchers. Candlelight vigils and makeshift shrines. Another campus, another deadly attack with a sickening senselessness that now borders on routine.

Despite a national push to secure schools after the Virginia Tech shootings, the rampage at Northern Illinois University this week proves a gut-wrenching reality: Unless colleges are willing to turn themselves into armed camps, they're helpless against these kinds of attacks.

As word of the shootings rippled throughout the country, students and authorities alike reacted with frustration and — tellingly — resignation.

"I don't think there's anything that could be done," said Brittany Dornack, 21, a sophomore at the University of Minnesota.

"People do what they feel like they need to do, and I don't think anyone is going to be able to stop them. People will just have to either learn to live in fear ... or they'll just have to not think about it."

Mayhem over in a few minutes
The gunman this time, Steven Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old NIU graduate, opened fire Thursday afternoon in a lecture hall, killing five students and injuring more than a dozen others in a rapid-fire assault that lasted just a few minutes. He committed suicide on the stage.

Authorities responded quickly; the first 10 police officers were on the scene in 90 seconds. NIU launched its emergency alert system — a carefully rehearsed plan developed after Virginia Tech — sending out e-mails and messages on Web sites to notify students that a possible gunman was on campus and they needed to find a safe area.

"We had a plan in place," said NIU President John Peters. "We did everything we could to ensure the safety of this university ... Nothing is perfect, but I believe it did work."

The plan will be reviewed, he said, but it and others like it are response plans, meant to limit the damage a shooter can do rather than stop one from invading a campus. As NIU Police Chief Donald Grady said, there is no foolproof way to prevent this type of tragedy.

"I wish I could tell you that there was a panacea for this kind of a thing, but you've noticed that there's been multiple shootings all over this country within the past six months," he said. "It's a horrible circumstance, and as much as we do it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning."

'You're scared to go to school'
That sober assessment weighed on the minds of NIU students who piled suitcases and laundry bags into cars Friday and left the nearly empty, snow-covered campus, apprehensive about their eventual return.

"You're scared to go to school lecture halls, and I'm going to be looking over my shoulder and skeptical of people coming to class late," said Allison Warren, a 20-year-old NIU student. "You kind of think it won't happen around here. It could happen anywhere ... and there's no way of really protecting yourself."

NIU, which is spread over 755 acres about 65 miles west of Chicago, illustrates the difficulty in protecting college campuses that have scores, or hundreds of buildings. Locking them, installing metal detectors or putting security personnel in each of them are not considered practical security measures.

In December, NIU closed for one day during final exams week after campus police found threats, including racial slurs and references to Virginia Tech, scrawled on a bathroom wall in a dormitory.

The latest shootings, of course, have renewed questions about the availability of guns — Kazmierczak bought all four guns legally from the same shop in Champaign, Ill. — and the tricky balance in keeping public places accessible but safe.

"People ask the question, 'Can you stop it?' That demonstrates the bigger question: 'Can we stop it anywhere?'" asked Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, a nonprofit group in Pennsylvania. "College and university campuses are not perfect oases. This is not the ivory tower."

Kassa said NIU's plan might have prevented more deaths.

"The lesson to be drawn from this is that it could have been worse if people were not prepared," he said. "Colleges and university campuses are unique but they must be seen as communities like everything else."

MORE FROM CRIME & COURTS

Crime & courts Section Front

Mo. man charged in quadruple killing Young hunter who killed hiker gets 30 days Central Park’s stolen eagles return to roost   More bones found at Ill. cemetery Attorney freed after 14 years in jail Boston mobster describes killing Parents of 16 kids shot to death Suspect in Ark. crime spree shot dead Al-Qaida inmate accesses Obama's books Feds nab more than 35,000 fugitives Crime & courts Section Front   Add Crime & courts headlines to your news reader: