Why wasn't the siren used at Tech?

Written by Gene Broadus

A week ago today, the Virginia Tech campus was on lock down as police searched for murder suspect William Morva, near the Tech campus. Morva was the subject of a 36-hour manhunt, wanted for the slayings of police officer Eric Sutphin and security guard Derrick McFarland. A question that is being frequently asked lately is why didn�t Virginia Tech alert the student body and faculty of this situation by sounding their Siren System designed specifically for emergency situations?   �There are lots and lots of things that the university could have done,� said Larry Hincker, vice president of university relations. �And we�re trying to access it all right now during our internal debrief to figure out whether we did everything that we could have done. We�re going to have a whole Lessons Learned Committee that will discuss the Siren issue at length. That certainly will be a topic of discussion.�   Hincker also indicated that the university is going to have several debriefings over the next week to discuss this matter and others.   �There were hundreds and hundreds of activities and actions taking place simultaneously around the campus. We were able to lock down, literally lock down all the dormitories from the Hokie Passport office, and the Hokie Passport office took it upon themselves to do that.  So, there are lots and lots of things like that, and we are basically capturing all the information now to be in a much better position in the future.�   Some believe the Siren System would have caused campus wide chaos and confusion. Especially when nobody would have known why it was being sounded in the first place.   In all, Virginia Tech has been credited for doing an outstanding job alerting the campus about the Morva manhunt. Through e-mail, messages and other sources, the university was able to inform students and lock down the dormitories. There were no students hurt or harmed by the suspect. Morva was captured and is now facing Capital Murder charges.

 

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