UNC-Chapel Hill leaders hear from campus police on active-shooter response plans

As the nation reels from a spate of mass shootings this summer and some push for greater action on gun violence, a committee of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees heard Wednesday about the university’s emergency preparedness and active shooter response plans.

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks gun violence, has tallied at least 356 mass shootings in the United States this year through the first three weeks of July. The deadliest took place May 24, when a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Still, UNC-CH “didn’t just start thinking about these things this summer,” George Battle, the university’s vice chancellor for Institutional Integrity and Risk Management, told the Audit, Compliance and Risk Management Committee on Wednesday. “This is emergency management, in general. Active shooter response, specifically, are things that we’ve planned for [and] thought about for years.”

University police responded to a suspected armed and dangerous person on campus in October 2020, which prompted a 30-minute lockdown. Some students were frustrated by the emergency communication from the school, but a police investigation found there was no armed individual on campus.

Active shooter response

In the case of an active shooter, Chief of UNC Police Brian James said, the first priority would be to capture or neutralize the active shooter. The first officers to arrive on the scene are instructed to enter the building, engage and stop the threat.

The following priorities, according to the presentation Wednesday, would be to rescue victims, provide medical assistance and preserve the crime scene.

Amid the chaos, within the first 30 minutes to hour of a response, the university would aim to develop situational awareness, support the initial response and immediately notify the campus community to take shelter or other precautions, said Director of Emergency Management and Planning Darrell Jeter.

Upon confirmation that an active shooter or “active terrorism situation” exists, the university would activate the Alert Carolina system and notify the patrol supervisor and other patrol units, including the Chief of Division Commanders, the Chapel Hill Police Department and Orange County EMS.

The university would form a contact team — after the initial officers entered the building — to engage and stop the active shooter, provide intelligence and maintain communications with the incident commander.

A separate rescue team would locate and help victims out of the building, while police officers assigned to the team provide security. The rescue team would also be responsible for forming a perimeter to “essentially quarantine that area” and “contain the threat,” James said.

“Any time we have to enact these plans, we really want to focus on making sure that we provide support to those first responders on the scene,” Jeter said.

The university uses a National Incident Management System model to coordinate communications and information across jurisdictions.

“We rely on mutual aid,” Jeter added, so “we all need to operate under a common organizational framework and structure.”

Training and resources

UNC Police have undergone several training initiatives related to active shooter response over the past several years. This year, Jeter ran a refresher training on the emergency operations plan at UNC-CH, and officers participated in a firearms range day focused on drills and firing sequences used in active shooter response.

“We’ve been training in this particular manner for years now,” James said.

After the 1999 Columbine massacre, law enforcement “really rethought our tactics” and developed a new tactic to enter the building immediately after confirming the presence of an active shooter.

In 2021, officers participated in a full-scale active shooter exercise, which aimed to simulate a more realistic response in which the gunman wore body armor and officers had to shoot while in motion.

Officers also received training on responding to school incidents last year, suicide bombing incidents in 2019 and on other topics in 2018. No trainings were held in 2020 due to the pandemic.

James emphasized the importance of community relationships in informing emergency response. Incidents he studied in which law enforcement was able to preempt an attack were almost always a result of communication between a community member and the police, he said.

“I can’t express enough how important it is for the UNC police department to have great relationships with all the people we serve,” he said. “That information, however big or small, may be that piece of information that prevents tragedy on our campus.”

The presentation also highlighted various resources available to UNC community members to help them prepare and respond to active shooter situations, including the Carolina Ready mobile safety app, building emergency action plan templates and guides for students, faculty and staff on the Carolina Ready website.

The university also plans to host a “Zombie Preparedness Festival” in September to share information and resources during National Preparedness Month.

‘A world-class safety university’

In the questions and comments period after the presentation, committee member Allie Ray McCullen noted that UNC faces safety concerns beyond active shooter situations, such as sexual violence and drugs on campuses.

“We constantly hear we’re a world-class university. But also I want to hear that we are a world-class safety university. And we have fallen short on that,” he said. “I want to see us upgrade safety of all kinds.”

Committee chair Marty Kotis noted in response that the Board of Governors had recently raised the campus security fee to increase the funding available and passed additional educational benefits with the goal of better recruiting and retaining officers.

About vacancies in the department, James added that a state-level initiative is in development to “give us some flexibility” within department salaries. Surrounding areas “pay really well, and we certainly have to be able to compete with them.”

What to do if an armed gunman is on campus

UNC Police offers advice and action steps on its website for students, faculty, staff or any person who is near someone wielding a gun on campus:

▪ Call 911 to tell police the situation once out of harm’s way.

▪ If unable to get out of the room or building, hide but not in a place in which you could be trapped. Lock the door, be quiet and mute your cell phone.

▪ Spread out and do not gather in a small space because that makes it too easy for a shooter to target a lot of people.

▪ If you are in the same room as a shooter, you might have to confront the person. In this situation, “become more aggressive than ever” by throwing things at the shooter, yelling and doing whatever it takes. Tell yourself, “I will survive.”

▪ Do not run toward police officers when law enforcement officials arrive on the scene. Raise your hands, spread your fingers and drop to the floor. Be compliant and calmly provide details to officials.

▪ If you are in a hostage situation, do not be aggressive. Be patient and compliant and let the police negotiate.

Any campus group can request training from UNC Police.