Southwestern College administrators have acknowledged a myriad of problems with the Sept. 6 campus evacuation, which happened after a parent called to report their child overhearing another student comment about shooting up the college.
Student workers said they were forced to stay to sweep and wash dishes. One police officer even left his car unattended in the road and blocked traffic behind his vehicle. Students with disabilities were the last to be evacuated.
SWC President Dr. Kindred Murillo said she was awaiting a flight when she received the news. She called for an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) meeting and took on the role as “incident commander.” Murillo said what the family told the police was alarming.
“What they said was concerning,” she said. “We felt we had to find that student and follow up still not knowing the name of student.”
It boiled down to two options, she said, a lockdown or an evacuation.
Because they did not know the student’s name or if they were on campus at the time, Murillo said the EOC did not want to lockdown in fear of provoking the credible threat in class.
SWC Police Chief Dave Nighswonger said he assumed that the credible threat was not on campus because of the subject’s school schedule on record.
“By comparing the schedules of the potentials we didn’t feel the person was here,” Nighswonger said. “We ultimately identified the person of interest and they were able to confirm the schedule. We were then attempting to make contact with this person. No scheduled classes.”
Notifications to evacuate were sent to faculty and students via text message, email and phone. Many students and faculty, however, did not receive all or any of the notifications. Murillo stated the inconsistency is due to information either not being updated, or when it was updated the data was transferred to the wrong data element or inputted in the wrong location.
Cafeteria workers were notified of the mandatory evacuation but were not allowed to leave. The employee said their supervisor would not let staff evacuate until the day’s work was finished. A cafeteria employee asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
“I was a little concerned about my life and my coworkers lives,” the employee said. “Since that time (of the evacuation notice), it was only about 40 minutes. It took so long because we were washing dishes, cleaning, making sure everything was clear. I was concerned about what could happen if that was something super serious.”
The workers’ leader and supervisor were present and said workers were not allowed to leave until everything was done. Those workers waited an extra 20 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get off campus.
The Sun reached out to Food Services Manager Jackie Watts but did not receive a response before deadline.
SWCPD Sgt. Marco Bareno said the situation was against protocol.
“I’m pretty sure the person would be reprimanded,” he said. “You can’t just keep a person when there’s an evacuation.”
Bareno compared the evacuation to people leaving a ballpark after a game.
“Everyone exiting at the same time, you can put about eight or nine exits out here and you’d still have an issue getting out, unfortunately,” said Bareno. “There’s a lot of construction going on. That doesn’t help.”
Anthropology Club President Christina Cortese, however, said the construction at the college was beneficial.
“The damn construction workers were more helpful than the police,” Cortese said. “One immediately started directing traffic to allow us to get out of the L parking lot.”
Campus Police Officer Jorge Rojas left a patrol car unattended in the road. Students trying to evacuate had no way to go around the vehicle. Those trying to get off campus were at a standstill, and it took 45 minutes for students to exit.
Murillo has three solutions regarding traffic congestion if this situation were to happen again. She said the back gate near the Child Development Center would be opened sooner. Select people would be assigned to certain parking areas to help guide people to the exits. The college would also contact the city and have the lights turned green continuously to speed up the evacuation. She also suggested that students leave their cars on campus and focus on getting out, even if it is by foot.
Murillo said the Metropolitan Transit System was a huge help for students without cars. SWC contacted MTS and requested more buses to assist the evacuation, though school officials did not explicitly request a bus that was accessible for people with disabilities. Students with mobility challenges were waiting for almost an hour while other students boarded.
Murillo said administrators learned a lot from this evacuation and are trying to improve the system.
“I think overall it went very well,” Murillo said. “I have been involved in many college evacuations, so I do have a reference point. We learned a lot. It’s always you learn a lot when you do this kind of stuff, but when you think about the whole entire fact that we had within 45 minutes everyone off campus, I was pretty pleased with that.”
