City didn’t use all available alert systems during Raleigh’s mass shooting

The city of Raleigh didn’t use two available alert systems during last week’s mass shooting that would have sent text messages to people’s cell phones.

Five people were shot and killed Oct. 13 before police ultimately captured the 15-year-old suspect over four hours later. During that time, the city never asked Wake County to send ReadyWake Alerts or alerts through the federal alert system.

“This is something we will be looking into as we move forward,” city of Raleigh spokesperson Julia Milstead said in a statement. “City leaders and the command staff with the Raleigh Police Department will perform a comprehensive after-action review of all the steps taken during this incident, with the goal being to ensure communications with the community is a top priority.”

The city of Raleigh didn’t make anyone available for an interview for this story.

The News & Observer has compiled a timeline of the Oct. 13 shootings, which includes information from 911 calls, radio traffic and the city’s five-day report.

The first calls to 911 happened at 5:09 p.m. with first responders arriving 10 minutes later.

The suspect was located at 6:42 p.m. and, after an hours-long standoff, taken into custody at 9:36 p.m.

Throughout the night, the city or the Raleigh Police Department made 14 public posts on social media, including Nextdoor, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. These included posts about an active shooter and for people on certain streets to remain in their homes. Updates were also posted on the city’s website, and news alerts were also sent to local media.

On Nextdoor, Raleigh sent alerts to 16 neighborhoods, according to Milstead. A person would need to be registered on the Nextdoor platform and have opted-in to receive those alerts. If they were opted-in, they would have received a text message, email and in-app notification.

Raleigh and all municipalities in Wake County can request that Wake County Emergency Management send ReadyWake alerts, another opt-in system, or Wireless Emergency Alerts through the FEMA Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS).

Wireless Emergency Alerts are like severe weather or Amber alerts that get sent to people’s phones unless they opt out and “can be geotargeted down to the tenth of a mile,” according to Wake County spokesperson Alice Avery.

“The jurisdiction having authority would need to request that an alert be sent out,” she said. “The incident commander would call the emergency communications center, which would then reach out to the Wake County Emergency Management staff person on call to activate the alert.”

Wake County didn’t receive a request to activate either system Oct. 13.

Federal alert legislation

Congress is deciding whether to pass the Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022, a bill co-sponsored by Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from the Triad, and supported by the N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police.

Also known as House Resolution 6538, the bill aims to create an alert system that allows law enforcement to communicate directly with the public about an active shooter in their area.

“Recent mass shootings have shown the critical importance of timely dissemination of information to save lives,” Manning said in a news release in June. “These incidents put immense pressure on our communities and law enforcement officers. By eliminating delayed alerts and improving emergency communications systems, we can save lives and keep our communities safe and informed.”

The bill passed the House 260-169. For North Carolina’s delegation, this was a party line vote, with Democrats supporting it. The bill stalled in the Senate, where there is a mirroring bill that hasn’t been taken up.

Republicans argued that the bill was another way to “politicize the Biden Justice Department.” Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, who made that claim on the House floor, said that every state has at least one alerting authority already in use.

The bill establishes a national coordinator from the Department of Justice for the Active Shooter Alert Communications Network who would work with state, tribal and local governments to encourage coordination and establish procedures for responding to active shooters.

These alerts would notify residents, motorists and individuals traveling near an active shooter site. The bill also encourages the alerts to be multilingual.

One concern the bill addresses is that the coordinator needs to create a system that would alert potential victims of the threat, without tipping off the shooter to where people might be hiding. Amber Alerts and weather notifications on cell phone can be quite loud and intrusive when they go off.

The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to study and report on responses to active shooters and situations that required the use of a public alert or warning.