Virginia Tech Shootings Touch Massachusetts

The nation is still reeling from the massacre that left, according to DCist, 33 people dead at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. Local news reported this morning that one of the people killed was a student from Saugus named Ross Alameddine.

Many people are still puzzled about what exactly happened between the first shooting, which happened in a dormitory, and the second shooting, which happened in a classroom building. An inordinate amount of time - two hours - elapsed before students knew about the first shooting. A CNN interview with one of the editors of the student newspaper revealed that the student newspaper had posted word of the first shooting before the administration sent out an official e-mail.

The AP quoted one student as saying:
"I'm pretty outraged that someone died in a shooting in a dorm at 7 O'clock in the morning and the first e-mail about it had no mention of locking down the campus, no mention of canceling classes," Jason Piatt told CNN.
"They just mentioned that they were investigating a shooting," he said. "That's pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, while they sent out that e-mail, 21 people got killed."

The only person responsible for this disgusting act is the gunman. But we want to know what our local universities have done to prepare for the event of a madman striking their campus. Over at Universal Hub, tblade considers what the university could have done:

This is unconscionable. I don’t care how bad communication is on any university campus. After the first shooting, the area should have been flooded with law enforcement and a strong official presence should have made everyone acutely aware something wasn’t right. No one on campus should have been oblivious to fact the campus was a hot zone, even if specifics of a loose gunman could not be effectively communicated.

We can't bring back the victims of this massacre, but we do need to look ahead, learn from the mistakes that unfolded, and think about what we can do to prevent these incidents.