Updated: Tuesday, 08 Dec 2009, 11:18 PM EST
Published : Tuesday, 08 Dec 2009, 3:58 PM EST
By MYFOXDC STAFF/myfoxdc
WOODBRIDGE, Va. – Prince William County Police say they have a 20-year-old student in custody after shots were fired in a classroom at the Northern Virginia Community College Woodbridge campus on Tuesday afternoon. Police say Jason Hamilton is charged after allegedly firing shots at a female professor in a classroom.
According to investigators, they were notified around 2:40 p.m. Tuesday of a student who was armed with a gun on the campus. A Prince William County Police spokesperson says the gunman went into a math class in the main building and pointed a high-power rifle at a female professor. The spokesperson says the teacher hit the floor when she saw the gun, and the gunman then fired several shots, but no one was hit.
“From what I understand, they hit the floor and had the students evacuated,” said Provost Sam Hill. “She was also assisted by another faculty member.”
More at: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/shots-fired-nova-woodbridge-campus-120809
RICHMOND, Va. — During the worst campus shooting spree in American history, Virginia Tech officials locked down some administrative buildings and warned their own families more than an hour and a half before the rest of the campus was alerted, according to revisions made in the state’s official report on the tragedy.
More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/us/05virginia.html
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of mobile users in Bangladesh’s flood and cyclone-prone areas will now receive advance warning of an impending natural disaster through an alert on their cell phones, a government official says.
Bangladesh — one of the world’s most densely populated countries — is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, including cyclones, storm surges, droughts, floods and earthquakes, which often affect millions of people.
In a bid to minimise loss of life and damage to property, Bangladeshi authorities have signed an agreement with two mobile operators in the country to provide disaster early warning alerts to subscribers.
Grameenphone and state-owned Teletalk will send instant messages to their subscribers in two of the most vulnerable areas — flood-prone north-central Shirajganj district and cyclone-prone Cox’s Bazar district on the coast.
“This new initiative will mean that people will get an alert on their phones warning them that they are likely to face flooding or a cyclone,” Syed Ashraf, communications specialist for the country’s Disaster Management Bureau, told Reuters by telephone.
“So they will then be able to take action like evacuate their homes and seek shelter in assigned places.”
More at: http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-40562420090624?sp=true
“Between Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings, some of my security colleagues and I became concerned about how effectively we’d communicate with the community during emergencies,” says Tom Carey, Director of Security and Campus Safety at Bates College, a four-year independent liberal arts and sciences college in Lewiston, Maine.
“If a security incident occurred on campus, students, staff, or visitors could walk straight into trouble if we couldn’t get an emergency message to them in time,” adds Carey, who’s on the Domestic Preparedness committee of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA), the leading voice of the campus public safety community. “While PDAs and cell phones are great, they leave a gap in emergency response for those not carrying or paying attention to them.”
When natural or man-made disasters occur, from tornado warnings to domestic or international terrorism, PDAs, cell phones and email are of little help to those without them or ignoring them. To better protect school campuses and the wider community, wireless PA systems compatible with existing two-way radio systems are economically filling the emergency response-security gap at some of the nation’s most pro-active campuses and municipalities.
Looking for Better Choices
Carey sought a fast, informative, comprehensive, and reliable emergency response system for Bates College, but was unsatisfied with the traditional choices.
More at: http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/MassNotification/BestPractices/?ArticleID=312&page=1
