Text messages bounded back and forth through the Village even more late Friday than on a usual weekend night. Bar-goers and people in apartments and houses frantically typed out messages of fear on their cell phone keypads in an effort to find out what really happened at a nearby house where three men were shot.
Many texted that the shooting had occurred at a popular bar, some sent messages saying the victims had died and others typed out claims of a second shooting.
The only text message students didn't get that night was the one that could have actually helped.
Ball State University set up an emergency alert system that included text messages to students after shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University put many college security systems under scrutiny. The university created the message system to quickly spread information to students in the event of an emergency situation, such as a weather disaster or a shooting.
Apparently, a shooting in a neighborhood near campus that is populated primarily by students doesn't qualify as enough of an emergency to prompt Ball State Police to notify students.
The three men, two Ball State students and another man, were shot at a house at 202 N. Dill St., only three blocks from the University Police Department on the corner of campus.
Swarms of emergency vehicles attracted the attention of students in the Village area, and word spread quickly about the incident. With so many students in nearby houses and at Village restaurants and bars, it's no surprise that facts got twisted and no one was really sure about what had happened. The more the hearsay spread, the more afraid some students became.
A text message from the university could have stemmed that flow of misinformation.
Tony Proudfoot, associate vice president for marketing and communications, said the university decided not to send an alert because the shooting did not appear to be a random incident, so no other students were in danger.
Although an alert could have caused undue panic to students unaware of the shooting, less information was not the answer.
The university still has not released a statement explaining what happened, although Ball State police are involved in the investigation. Students wanted to know what was happening when the incident occurred, and they still want to know what happened. The university is not maintaining a good relationship with its students by withholding information.
When students sign up for the text alerts, they trust the university to let them know when emergencies happen. Three men were shot in a highly student-populated area on a weekend night, and the gunman was not caught. If that does not count as an emergency worthy of a text alert, what does?
University Police did not deem this shooting an emergency, but Ball State students in the Village definitely did.
Although this shooting did not happen on campus, it did affect the campus community because of the large number of students who were nearby.
The university does not have an official policy that determines when the text alerts should be used; this judgment is left up to Ball State police.
Ball State should define a specific policy that includes areas outside campus where students congregate.
If the school wants students to stay calm at a time of urgency, it needs to keep us in the loop.
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