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SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS JUNE 2011 www.securitysystemsnews.com Virginia Tech first school fined for failure to notify campus community in timely fashion By Leischen Stelter BLACKSBURG, Va.—Virginia Tech, the location of a school shooting that claimed the lives of 30 students and teachers in April 2007, will be the first school fined the maximum penalty for not issuing a timely and appropriate warning to the campus community. On March 29, the U.S. Department of Education announced that Virginia Tech will be fined $55,000 for two violations of the Jeanne Clery Act, a federal statute that requires institutions to—among several regulations—give timely warnings of crimes that represent a threat to the safety of students or employees. “It’s never been an issue of the mass notification system or if they properly utilized a public address system,” said S. Daniel Carter, direc- tor of public policy for Security On Campus, a non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of criminal violence at colleges and universities. “The issue in these find- ings had to do with the procedures used to determine what would be in the warning and when it would be issued.” Police first learned that two stu- dents had been killed at 7:24 a.m. on April 16, 2007 and the university president was aware of the incident at 8:11 a.m., according to an article in The Washington Post. However, the university didn’t issue a campus- wide email alert until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting. Additionally, the message sent to the college community did not mention there had been killings and did not direct the students and teachers to take any safety measures. It was soon after that message was sent out that Seung Hui Cho began killing teachers and students in an academic building. Virginia Tech denies wrongdoing and will appeal the action, according to the publication. “We believe that Virginia Tech administrators acted appropriately in their response to the tragic events of April 16, 2007, based on the best information then available to them at the time,” said Larry Hincker, university spokes- man, according to the publication. This is the first substantial case of an institution of higher learning being fined for not complying with the timely requirement of the Clery Act. However, there has been some issue with what is considered “time- ly.” Carter said that the Department of Education has been very clear about evaluating each incident on a case-by-case basis and not setting a specific time frame for complying with the law. A significant reason for this is due to the fact that technol- ogy has changed so fast that what is considered timely today wasn’t even possible in the past. Carter emphasized that the expec- tation of timeliness has evolved alongside technology since the Clery Act was first enacted in 1990. “Back then, institutions used technology that was available, which was mostly putting flyers up around campus,” he said. “As technology evolved, email became the next platform channel for issuing a timely warning and next was text messaging. These all increased expectations even fur- ther in the way information can be disseminated.” Similarly, some have taken issue with the relatively insignificant amount of the fine. Carter said that the fine would have been greater had the Department of Education indexed for inflation as Congress instructed in 1990. “They are sup- posed to do this every four years, but it hasn’t happened,” he said. “It would be approximately $50,000 per violation, if it had been properly Continued from page 14 indexed for inflation.” Despite a relatively low monetary consequence, it is important for Virginia Tech to be fined for such gross violations of the Clery Act, he said. “There’s no amount of money that would be appropriate for the consequences of this case and there’s no practical civil penalty equal to 30 lives, but a positive aspect of this is that it sends a strong message to other institutions that they have to have solid policies in place.” SSN Seattle’s wireless capabilities of the network would allow various departments to share the same infrastructure. “The network has the capacity and quality of service to differentiate traffic and prioritize it for public safety,” Harris said, limiting the bandwidth dedicated to the public and prioritizing the bandwidth for public safety purposes. Moss said the network has proven itself as a robust system. During the Pioneer Square deploy- ment, for example, the network had to be powered by utility poles, which meant street lights had to be on 24/7, he said. When the mayor decided to kill the lights during the day, half of the network went down. “We saw how the transition hap- pened when the network was shut down and we watched it come back up and the self-healing properties were proven to us from a real-world scenario,” said Moss. SSN NEWS 15 1927 New York Yankees Result: Most AL Wins (Single Season) Record Lasted a Quarter Century Think big, work together, follow through…achieve results. —Anonymous IT TAKES RESULTS. Since 2000, Alarm.com has consistently delivered innovative interactive security solutions. Together with our Dealer Partners, we have achieved record results. l Over 3 billion activity monitoring messages processed l Over 2 million 2-way voice minutes over GSM transmitted l Over 150 million notifications delivered l Over 5 million individual sensors monitored Partner with the company who is committed to your success. Visit www.alarm.com to learn more. Stay Secure. Stay Connected. © 2011 Alarm.com. All rights reserved.