A shot wasn’t heard ‘round the world Tuesday night, but it might as well have been. At approximately 10 p.m. four unknown black males approached a student outside Regents Residential College and pointed a gun at the student before fleeing the area. No one was hurt, and no shots were fired.
But if you were sitting in the library, minding your own business as you studied for finals, you wouldn’t even know that there were potentially four men, one of them armed, on the run in Murray. Actually, you wouldn’t know that, period, until after midnight, when Public Safety made known what rumor on campus had already attested to.
The News repeatedly contacted Public Safety to find out if the rumors were true on the night the incident happened. Public Safety first responded that there were conflicting reports on the matter and that more information would be made available as they were able to gather it. A second call was met with claims by Public Safety that they were unaware of any situation on campus.
In the midst of a potentially life-threatening situation, Public Safety stonewalled the press and provided no warning nor any answers to students about what was happening on campus. We were given no Public Safety alert in the form of a text message. We were not made aware of any goings on anywhere on campus at all.
If anything constitutes a neglect of duty on the part of Public Safety, this is it.
We are all well aware that we live in a dangerous world. Being in the “Friendliest Small Town” in the country doesn’t change that. ?Being located in a small town didn’t protect the students of Heath High School. It didn’t save those who were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School. If such violence is to be visited upon our campus, there’s no reason to think that similar outcomes are not possible, if this is the kind of response Public Safety has to offer.
The what ifs of that night are all too terrible to imagine. We were one trigger pull away from tragedy. One shot away from being another school shooting statistic in the great ol’ USA.
Public Safety cannot, of course, stop all incidents and there is no way for them to anticipate events like what happened on Tuesday night. We applaud Public Safety and our Murray State Police for the work that they do, yet we cannot refrain from criticizing the way the incident was handled.
The sole purpose of Public Safety is to keep students safe. If Public Safety cannot do that, if it cannot even communicate with the student population to make sure that those students are safe, how can we rely on it in times of greater need or when information would prevent needless injury, or even death?
Why is it that Murray State Public Safety can issue a text-message warning about a tornado in the area, but not about an armed man (or men) walking about campus? Furthermore, why conceal what happened or delay the reporting?
There are instances wherein withholding information is essential for public safety, such as in a situation where such information could lead to the escape of a suspect or give too much of their own intelligence away.
This was not one of those cases.
An armed person potentially wandering around campus at night is something students, especially those who will be spending long hours in the library studying and then walking home at night, need to know. That is not up for debate.
What is up for debate is how we can make our campus safer. The text message alert system is an ingenious idea for our always-connected, mobile society, and we applaud Public Safety for its adoption. We just want to see it used more effectively, and instances like this warrant that.
There’s also always increasing Racer Escorts or even increasing the number of officers.
We must take any action, bear any burden to make our campus safe. In this day and age, we can no longer do nothing.
The staff editorial is the majority opinion of The Murray State News Editorial Board.