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Quick response kept 2000 UA shooting from becoming massacre, UA chancellor says Wednesday, Apr 25, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau NORTH LITTLE ROCK - When University of Arkansas graduate student James Easton Kelly fatally shot his faculty advisor, professor John Locke, on the university's Fayetteville campus in 2000, the response by university police was swift. One minute after receiving a call about the incident, officers were outside the office where the shooting occurred. "Had we not been able to respond that quickly, we may well have faced a situation not unlike that at Virginia Tech," UA Chancellor John White said Tuesday. White was one of several speakers at a two-hour program on crisis policies and procedures sponsored by the state Department of Higher Education and hosted by Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock. Several speakers stressed the importance of a quick response to an emergency on campus. White said the building in which Kelly shot Locke, Kimple Hall, is UA's building that most closely resembles Norris Hall, the scene of most of the fatalities in the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings. On the day of the UA incident, classes were in session and the building was full of students. Kelly had been dropped recently from a doctoral program. "He had 90 rounds of ammunition," White said. "He has a list of all the faculty members on his doctoral committee. He clearly had more in mind than just going in and shooting his major professor." That crisis ended when Kelly shot and killed himself. White said he believes the fact that Kelley was pinned in the office by police is the only reason he did not go on a killing spree similar to that of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people, then committed suicide as police were closing in. White said the Virginia Tech shootings also hit home for him because of his personal connections to the school. He attended graduate school and formerly taught there, and his son currently is an engineering student at the university. His son was not hurt in last week's shootings, he said. In the Virginia Tech incident, Cho shot and killed two people in a dormitory about 7:15 a.m., then left the scene. Police responded to the scene of the first shootings, but classes went on as scheduled, and most students were unaware of the incident. About two hours later, when Cho entered Norris Hall to resume his shooting spree, the building was full of students. "They (police) were not prepared. They did not think outside the box," Little Rock police Lt. Terry Hastings said. Hastings said he was not criticizing the officers, because they were facing a situation that was entirely new to them. "Any time you have an incident that involves a school, you have to train the responding officers that it may be a continuing situation," he said. Teachers also need crisis training, Hastings said. When violence occurs on a campus, regardless of how many law enforcement agencies respond, it is the first person on the scene, be it a teacher or a campus officer, who is the most important person responding, he said. Also speaking during the program were representatives of the School Violence Resource Center, a program of UA's Criminal Justice Institute; Federal K-9 Security, a Little Rock-based company that trains dogs in bomb and firearm detection; the Arkansas State Police; and the FBI. One theme that was mentioned repeatedly was the need for campuses to conduct drills and exercises. "A good plan is no good if you don't practice it," said Larance Johnson, program director for the School Violence Resource Center. |
