By SUSAN JONES
The calls about a possible active shooter at Central Catholic and Oakland Catholic high schools, just adjacent to Pitt’s Oakland campus, on March 29 put the whole community on alert and sent Pitt Police into the fray as one of the first responder groups on scene before the incidents were determined to be a hoax.
The first alert from Pitt’s Emergency Notification System — “Report of a critical incident at Center Catholic, 4720 Fifth Ave., please avoid the area.” — went out at 10:28 a.m., followed quickly by: “Campus is on lockdown until critical incident at Central Catholic is resolved.”
For Kristin Kanthak, a political science faculty member and vice president of Senate Council, it was the second lockdown she’s gone through at Pitt. The first time was in 2012 during a shooting incident at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital on O’Hara Street that killed two, including the assailant, and injured seven.
On March 29, Kanthak was teaching a class in the Cathedral of Learning. “We got the first Pitt alert — the one telling us to stay away from Central Catholic — with about 15 minutes left in class and we spent the last several minutes of class talking about it. We got the text message for the lockdown just after class ended. Most of the class had left the room, but the few of us who were still there stayed in the classroom.
“A few minutes after the text alert, there was a message on a loudspeaker advising us to stay where we were. We spent the lockdown together sharing information as we were able to find it in the media. The students were very calm — many of them were texting or calling family to tell them what was going on. I think it helped that we fairly quickly started seeing reports that the situation might be a hoax. We were all pretty happy to stay where we were until we got the official all clear, though.”
During the 2012 incident, Kanthak said, “I was glad to be behind a locked door that time, and I think we were all a bit worried this time that there was no way to lock the classroom door. This was my first experience with the loudspeaker — I think that’s a great improvement because students don’t always get the texts. The students were amazing, though. They were all taking it very seriously while staying calm and helping each other. I think, unfortunately, they have too much experience with this kind of thing.”
On social media, some students complained that they hadn’t gotten the text message alerts from Pitt’s ENS. Everyone in the Pitt community is automatically subscribed to receive email alerts from ENS, but extra steps need to be taken to receive text and voice message alerts, as well. Pitt IT has details on its website about how to sign up for these messages.
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Log in to http://pi.tt/alerts.
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Click Add next to Mobile Phones and enter your phone number.
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Complete the steps in the subscription wizard.
Everyone on the Oakland campus also is encouraged to download the Rave Guardian app as a part of their safety planning.
Several units from Pitt Police were at the Oakland high schools assisting Pittsburgh Police with clearing the buildings. Ted Fritz, vice chancellor for public safety and emergency management, said in an email to the Pitt community: “We are grateful that this ultimately proved to be a false alarm and that all students and staff in the affected schools are safe. We are also grateful to all the first responders who rushed to the scene to ensure the safety of those inside.”
Kanthak said Fritz’s more recent increased visibility “was very helpful in the moment. Many of the students recognize him or at least know who he is. I think the fact that he’s been open with sharing his thought processes about security helped us to feel like we had a sense of how decisions were being made during the lockdown, even though we didn’t have much information ourselves.”
For those who feel they need assistance dealing with the fear and stress that comes from this type of event, there are many resources available, including the Pitt Counseling Center and Life Solutions.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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