Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier news editor
Anna Gorman, Campus Carrier staff writer
With many concerned about school safety after the recent shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., the Berry College Police Department (BCPD) is promoting its active shooter response training and continuing its efforts to make campus more secure.
According to Berry College Police Chief Ryan Chesley, all Berry police officers receive intensive active shooter response training.
“Our officers are in that as often as we can get them into some sort of active shooter response training,” Chesley said. “Some of them have been through sort of like a multidisciplinary approach training that combines emergency medical service, law enforcement response, even communication center training, so they can get a more holistic operational exposure.”
BCPD also facilitates shooting response training for members of the Berry community. Any group on campus can request the training, which is meant to prepare participants to think and react quickly in an active shooter event.
“The most important thing about these trainings is just generating dialogue — period — because one of things we know is that the more we have conversations about a topic, the more people engage in it mentally, the more situationally aware people become of their surroundings,” Chesley said. “We know that that assists any sort of response or reactive actions on the part of the person because they have had time to pre-think that.”
Chesley said that the department is making more concerted efforts to target its training to different departments on campus.
“What we have done more recently is to go more local with our training opportunities,” Chesley said. “We’ve tried to solicit that and offer that training to departments, or geographical areas on campus — maybe an office suite or a department that lives in a certain space — because it allows us to address particular safety concerns.”
According to Chesley, 23 different groups participated in the training last year, including Krannert night staff, Oak Hill staff and the animal science and nursing departments. Interest in the session changes depending on current events.
“We’ve been doing [the training] for about a decade or longer, so it isn’t a new program, but like a lot of things, interest in that program sort of cycles,” Chesley said. “Right now, I can tell you, there’s an enormous interest in active shooter training, and that’s because of the things that are going on locally and nationwide.”
Resident assistants (RA) participate in the shooting response sessions as part of their job training.
“The reason we focus on RAs is because they’re in residence halls, and if that happens, typically that’s going to be one of the areas of target outside of academic buildings,” Dean of Students Lindsey Taylor said.
Sophomore Emma Courtney, an RA in West Mary, said all RAs were given training over the summer two weeks before the semester began. Floyd County police and BCPD showed them videos of active shooter drills and simulations of how police would respond to an active shooter threat. RAs were then walked through the steps to take if there was an active shooter on campus. They were also taught how to stop bleeding.
“I feel like they presented the material in a way that made it not so scary, but at the same time it’s a heavy topic, so there was a weight to it,” Courtney said. “I think the way they presented the information helped. I don’t want to say it dumbed it down, because that was definitely not what it did, but it helped make it easier to talk about.”
Chesley encouraged students to reach out to the police department if they are interested in receiving the training.
In addition to training, all faculty and staff are given a folder containing information on emergency response, evacuation procedures and active shooter protocols.
Though both Taylor and Chesley encourage this training, specific details about BCPD’s response plan are confidential.
“Oftentimes, active shooters are part of the community,” Taylor said. “What [we are] never going to share is the full plan of how to respond, because if you share a full plan of what is in place then, more likely than not, the shooter knows.”
Berry’s extensive security infrastructure further protects the college from active shooter events. BCPD oversees managing and manning the safety technologies used around campus, such as the camera systems, license plate recognition, driver’s license, student ID scanning and physical access control, that together create a “layered security approach,” according to Chesley.
“No single system is fail-safe, and no single system in and of itself is adequate, but the goal here is just create layers of security,” Chesley said. “Berry’s extremely fortunate in that we have fairly proscriptive entry and exit points.”
This summer, BCPD begun installing cameras in parking lots around campus and is now finishing upgrades to its physical access system. The department is looking into deploying near field communications (NFC), short-range contactless communication between devices such as phones and tablets. The technology is used for mobile payments and access control in buildings.
Chesley said that the new camera technology can allow first responders to address an emergency more quickly.
“If we were aware of a threat coming into campus, we have the ability to enter a tag number or a driver’s license number to provide us some alert and some earlier indication,” Chesley said. “You can’t solely rely on those technologies but having them in place is just one more tool at our disposal.”
Taylor stressed that, despite technology improving, it is imperative students stay alert for any unusual activity.
“If there’s anything I want students to know, if you see something, say something,” Taylor said. “It can happen anywhere. So, know where exits are, you know? And I don’t want anyone to live in a state of fear, but it’s just being aware of your surroundings.”
According to a report in the New York Times, the suspect in the Winder shooting — a student at Apalachee High School — was investigated by the FBI and local authorities for threats he made more than a year before the tragedy. Taylor said that Berry constantly monitors social media for threats and has procedures for addressing tips about students.
“There have been times when I get screenshots of things of, even if it’s not actionable, [BCPD] just wants me to be aware of,” Taylor said. “If there are any students of concern, typically that’s talked about in a controlled group of people. We make decisions on what type of intervention need to happen, do parents need to brought in.”
Chesley said that BCPD regularly shares information about safety concerns with
other departments.
“We already have infrastructure in place that if there’s a student somebody’s received an alert on, we can pretty easily come together,” Chesley said. “All those conversations are regularly ongoing in quiet times.”
Taylor said looking out for each other emphasizes the “Good Neighbor” culture Berry upholds.
“When we talk about ‘Good Neighbor,’ this is one of those moments of ‘what does it look like to be a good neighbor?’” Taylor said. “How we treat each other can have lasting ripple effects. But also, if we see someone who’s struggling, how do you get them to help? And I hope that is the biggest takeaway in terms of what we can do to prevent crisis. It really is to look after each other.”