Public Safety revises emergency response time

Correction appended

The University has altered its emergency notification system to send out alerts sooner since the March 7 gun scare, representatives from the Department of Public Safety said at the USG meeting on Sunday night.

On March 7, Steven Shonts ’12 triggered a Princeton Telephone and E-mail Notification System (PTENS) alert by carrying a permanently disabled AK-47 across campus. Deputy Director of Public Safety Charles Davall said at the meeting that the 76-minute delay between the first report of a weapon sighting and the activation of the alert system was too long.

“We didn’t push the button very quickly that time,” Davall explained. “In retrospect, we know that wasn’t quick enough … Since then we’ve erred more on the side of caution than we did the first time.”

Referencing the gun scares that occurred last March, June and July, Davall noted the challenges of evaluating available information when making a decision about alerting the community to possible crimes on campus.

“You’re kind of less ready to push that button, particularly when we’ve had some ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ stuff going on,” Davall said, referring to the first of three incidents over the last year when Public Safety activated PTENS to alert the student body to potential weapons on campus. All of these cases turned out to be false alarms.

In response to the March 7 incident, Public Safety officials reevaluated their approach to emergency response notification, Davall added.

“The officer on the street — the officer in charge — has authority to make that call,” he explained. “As soon as they determine it’s a credible threat, they’re going to push that button.”

He cited the June 3 and July 27 gun scare incidents, in which the campus was also notified of weapons threats, as evidence of a shift in policy toward a more responsive approach to emergency situations.

“As soon as [officers] determine it’s a credible threat, they’re gonna push that button,” Davall said. “The second time was 21 minutes. The third one, 13 minutes.”

Still, he added, the University must refrain from over-using the alert system to ensure that it remains effective.

Though staff members at the meeting acknowledged that the University campus is a “relatively safe” place, they emphasized the importance of informing the student body of crimes as quickly as possible.

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“What you’re hearing here is an unbelievably sensitive response by Public Safety to potential threats,” Assistant Vice President for Safety and Administrative Planning Treby Williams said at the meeting. “We’re being very, very conservative in analyzing the information [about threats].”

Describing what occurs between the identification of a threat and the release of a PTENS alert, Williams said an emergency response begins immediately and is separate from the decision-making process regarding whether to alert students.

“It is important to know that that’s a separate exercise on a parallel track,” she said. “That is all happening right away. The question is, when do you send an alert to the affected community about this?”

USG president Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 emphasized that student input is vital to policy decisions and the evaluation of Public Safety protocol on a wide variety of issues, ranging from emergency response to alcohol rules enforcement.

“We’ve been talking about ways that we can get students involved in these issues. [Campus safety officials] are always working on things that we don’t even consider,” Diemand-Yauman said.

He also announced a survey, due out in the next few days, that will solicit student input about Public Safety’s emergency response policy.

“This survey will ask questions about a broad array of emergency response issues,” Diemand-Yauman explained. “Our main concern has not just been to ask questions but to ask questions that are relevant and to give the administrators — the people who are making decisions — the information to inform their policies.”

Correction

An earlier version of this article stated Shonts carried a repilica AK-47. In fact, it was a permanently disabled AK-47.