Lost minutes and unsaved lives

An immediate, trained police response to an emergency is the foundation of any successful security plan - reaching an active shooter quickly prevents additional loss of life. The police at NIU reached the shooter in less than two minutes, but six people were already dead and 15 injured. As terrible as this loss and pain are, the number of dead or injured would have been much higher had it taken just a moment longer for police to respond.

A Feb. 18 article in The Daily Princetonian stated that Princeton's security plan is similar to NIU's, but this is unfortunately not the case. It is my belief that the University community should understand what exactly our emergency response plan is and how that might impact the outcome of an event such as those at Virginia Tech and NIU.

Princeton University employs 22 New Jersey State-trained police officers, all of whom are commissioned with full police powers. Contrary to national law enforcement's best practices, the University maintains a policy of not arming any of its police. Instead, it relies on local municipal police departments in the event of an active shooter. This plan has, fortunately, never been put to the test; it is clear, however, that relying on outside help would only delay the engaging and neutralizing of a shooter on campus.

In any other emergency at Princeton, Public Safety officers are able to respond within two or three minutes. But in the event of an active shooter, Public Safety would not respond to the scene at all. Our officers are not properly equipped to act in this situation and would be forced to disengage and wait for outside help. The municipal police might be more delayed in responding and will certainly be at a disadvantage trying to act on unfamiliar ground. Local municipal police have limited knowledge of the University's geography and are very unfamiliar with the peculiarities of our buildings' layouts. This is a handicap that would cost valuable time - a commodity other shootings have proved is priceless in terms of lives saved or lost.

Princeton's security plan eliminates an extremely valuable resource by not properly equipping University police officers with the necessary tools to protect themselves and the community in the event of active shooter incident. In the first minutes of such an incident, the mass notification system currently in place will not save the lives that are immediately at risk. The notification system will certainly mitigate confusion within the community and help manage an active shooter incident, but it will not save lives in the way a quick-responding police force could.

As the University moves forward in its effort to provide the community with a comprehensive security plan, we must strive to look beyond the Orange Bubble. We are not immune from tragedy and must be brave enough to prepare for the worst while still hoping for the best. As a community we cannot allow idealism to keep us from examining our current security plan constantly with a critical eye. The lives of our friends and colleagues depend on it.

James Lanzi is the University's crime prevention coordinator and the president of the Princeton lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. He can be reached at jlanzi@princeton.edu.