So Wednesday someone was shot, not 200 yards from my office. A few minutes later I’m standing 20 feet away from the victim, a student, writhing around in pain, surrounded by 2 or 3 police officers, waiting for the ambulance. Witnesses of the crime saw two assailants fleeing the campus in a beat up car.
30 minutes later, all the local TV stations have camera crews on the scene. They broke from soap operas to broadcast live. Even the local Fox affiliate is on the scene. They interrupted Maury Povich. The scene quickly took on the feel of a zoo, a media circus.
Working in the communications office, you’re immediately deluged with phone calls from the media. Phone calls from confused faculty. Phone calls from concerned families. But we were prepared. We handled things well, considering the circumstances. Nonetheless the day’s events made for an 8 am - 10pm workday.
Video from state and local media outlets:
Even More News Coverage
More News Coverage
The state newspaper even had a camera.
And another clip.
Needless to say, it was a long day. A very. Long. Day. As will be tomorrow.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:10 am
I thought about you when I heard about the shooting. Looks like you’ve handled it well with the website.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:37 am
[...] was injured, hit close to home for fellow higher ed blogger College Web Guy, who works at UALR. His post about the incident includes links to area news coverage. Even though the campus uses its emergency alert system to [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Wow. You sure got my attention this morning. You guys did a great job handling it. I’m glad it wasn’t worse than it was. How’s the student?
February 28th, 2008 at 9:12 am
This is horrible. I hadn’t heard yet. I’ll definitely be keeping your campus in my prayers.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Wow, I don’t even know what to say. I really wasn’t expecting that title on BlogHighEd this morning. Any updates on the student’s condition? Glad to hear you and your co-workers are ok, and that it was only 1 student this time.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:09 am
WOW…glad to hear you’re alright. You never think that things like that will happen near you, but when it does, it’s very scary. I will be interested to hear how you handle this situation in the following days. It sounds like your campus was right on top of it. It might help other higher ed institutions to know what they can do in the days after an event like this.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
So glad to hear you and the rest of the campus community made it through this horrible ordeal. Although the alert timeline on the UALR would be what I consider to be a very speedy and well-planned response, have you had any feedback to the contrary?
Best wishes for a full recovery for everyone….
February 29th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Wow, glad you are doing OK. I think your blog post really conveys the chaotic, “all over the place” acrobatics your mind and spirit must be doing right now.
Stay strong and I hope everyone is going to recover and get stronger.