April 17, 2007

Killings stir fear in Mich. students

In light of the tragedy on the campus of Virginia Tech University, several local media outlets ran stories about safety measures and security issues at Michigan-based colleges and universities. Law enforcement and university officials at the state's higher education institutions agreed that they can\'t guarantee such tragedies will not occur on their campuses. But college officials say they work hard to prevent incidents like the mass shootings Monday at Virginia Tech and would work harder to deal with one if it did happen. Campus police officials said Monday they try to identify people in distress before tragedy occurs. \"We constantly tell students to let us know when you see a situation where a person is in distress or needs help,\" said Anthony Holt, chief of the Wayne State University police department. Once identified, those people are referred to crisis experts. \"If we deem you a threat to yourself or a threat to others,\" he said, \"we\'ll immediately do an intervention.\" In the Detroit News article, Holt said his 42 officers are trained to respond to various scenarios, ranging from bomb threats to barricaded gunmen. WWJ reporter Vickie Thomas interviewed students at WSU this morning about their views regarding campus security.

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