FSU's 3-hour lockdown started after the school shooter was in custody

Basic communication that police had arrested the student who opened fire could prevent three hours of lockdowns, emotional trauma to students and staff, and damage across the campus.

At Florida State University last week, the first shots were fired near the Student Union at 11:57 am. By 11:59 am, police had shot and detained the school shooter.

At 12:02 pm (3 minutes after the assailant was in police custody), FSU sent a message to all students telling them to lockdown, hide, barricade doors, and stay away from windows. This lockdown continued until 3:18 pm.

While students and staff were hiding in closets for 3 hours and 16 minutes, police broke down the locked doors in a dozen buildings around the Student Union as they searched for a second shooter. This all happened despite the fact that there’s NEVER been a second shooter who hides and waits for police to find them in any school shooting or mass shooting since the 1960s.

What was the point of this three-hour lockdown when police already had the school shooter in custody before the first campus alert was even sent out?

Searching every room of the campus for a second assailant is based on a fantasy scenario that doesn't exist. While police officials might say “better safe than sorry”, students aren’t physically or psychologically safe during an extended lockdown because there are real costs and risks from this practice.

• Every time police enter a room with guns drawn, there is a chance that an innocent student gets shot by mistake.

• When an officer is running with a rifle, there is a chance of an accidental discharge (this happened twice inside elementary schools during swatting hoaxes).

• Every time students hear the bang of police breaking a door or running down a hallway, they might decide to jump from a window.

• When students are taught to “run, hide, and fight” and they are already hiding, students might rush at police officers when they enter a room.

• Each door and door frame that's destroyed by a hydra-ram, sledgehammer, or pry bar is thousands of dollars to fix.

• Until the damage is repaired, students and staff can re-experience the trauma of the shooting and lockdown each time they pass a broken door.

Most of all, every student and staff member who is hiding for three hours, texting their family "goodbye", and using the bathroom in a trashcan is traumatized for no reason because there was no threat to anyone on campus before the lockdown alert was even sent. FSU students had to wait more than 3 hours for an update that the shooter was in custody.

The shooting, three hour lockdown, and the aftermath of the attack were so traumatic that Florida State University decided that it was optional for students to return to campus to finish the semester.

Morgan State University Shooting

FSU wasn’t the first university to experience the trauma of an unnecessary lockdown and police search. In 2023, 5 students were shot during a fight during an outdoor homecoming event at Morgan State University. Multiple people fired weapons and fled immediately.

Even though the shooters had fled, there was a multi-hour lockdown with militarized police in camouflage uniforms entering dorm rooms and pointing rifles at students while yelling at them to:

• "Let me see your hands"

• "Open that shower up"

• "Pull your shirts up"

• "Turn around"

These overblown active shooter responses and the fantasy scenario in police trainings have conditioned police officers to believe there is a threat waiting behind every door. These Morgan State students were college kids who had just been traumatized by a shooting during a homecoming event and the tactical officers recorded on video while searching their dorm rooms showed no respect or compassion for them in this interaction.

Also in 2023 at Michigan State University, an adult opened fire inside two buildings, walked away from campus, and then committed suicide. The first lockdown alert was sent 12 minutes after the shooting started. At this point, the shooter had already left the campus, yet the lockdown and police searches of campus buildings continued for five hours after the shooter was already dead. Michigan State paid $15 million settlements to the families of three students who were killed for gross negligence in implementing security measures. The University faces another $50 million lawsuit.

Better communication between police and school officials

This is a problem that I wrote about back in 2018 following the Las Vegas Harvest Festival shooting.

“Shooter is halfway up, halfway up in the Mandalay Bay Hotel” was the radio transmission from a Las Vegas patrol officer seconds after the shooting started. At the street level, there was nothing this officer could do to stop an elevated shooter in a high-rise hotel room other than share critical information over the radio.

Sadly — but predictably — this important information went unnoticed as other officers frantically called in wounded victims and erroneous information about the location of the shooter (and even multiple shooters during the initial confusion). More than 6 minutes and 40 seconds passed before police supervisors identified the location of the shooter and directed officers to the 32nd floor of the hotel.