by Ashley Cooks
When security procedures at the University of Oklahoma were put to the test in January, Julie Jones was teaching multimedia journalism in a Gaylord College auditorium.
“My students noticed something was going on outside, so we all went to the window to look and to try to figure out what was going on,” she said.
Outside the building, authorities were responding in force to reports that shots had been fired.
The journalism school and nearby Gould Hall, which houses the College of Architecture, were shut down briefly. Maj. Bruce Chan of the campus police department said members of several agencies responded to the report by gathering on the east side of Van Vleet Oval, where Gaylord and Gould are located.
Airanna Pickard, a junior attending Jones’ class, said many people came from outside Gaylord seeking shelter.
“I didn’t want to leave the auditorium because it seemed like the safest place,” she said.
Many of her classmates, she said, received notices about a possible shooting on campus.
“Shooting on campus. Avoid Gould Hall. Seek immediate shelter in place,” read a tweet sent to the campus by OU Sooner, the university’s official Twitter account.
Pickard said she also received that message through email and voicemail.
The university’s Information Technology department “does all of that . . . entering everything in the emergency notation system,” said Chan, a 30-year veteran of the OU force.
If a shooting occurs, he said, “there are three things that should be done: to get out, hide out [or] take out,” referring to the possibility of ganging up on a suspect.
“We go to the sound of the gunfire and stop the threat,” he said.
“After any major incident, we will evaluate any type of procedures, equipment, protocols and responses — if we did the right thing or if more should have been done,” Chan said.
“Basically, we train for all hazardous things. So if there is a earthquake and it causes structural damage or structural collapses, we will respond and we will be a part of the university efforts to provide emergency care,” he said.
