With the increasing prevalence of school shootings, guns on university campuses has become a touchy subject.
The debate is a controversial one, with both sides fighting hard and pulling their constitutional rights into it.
But when a gun is spotted on a college campus — as it was on Sept. 1 when campus went into lockdown — Ball State's University Police Department takes that very seriously, said UPD Chief Jim Duckham.
"Reports of an armed subject on campus are a serious matter," Duckham said in an email from university spokesperson Joan Todd. "UPD is tasked with protecting the safety of the entire Ball State community [and] attempts to gather as much information from the initial caller as possible."
Although calls about a gun spot occur "very infrequently," Duckham said, they must be taken seriously.
In the case on Sept. 1, a civilian called in to notify police about the gun spotted, and officers were sent out to begin an investigation.
The initial information is often limited, Duckham said, so officers must evaluate the information correctly and respond appropriately.
Having campus secured and sheltered allows UPD to respond to the emergency, Duckham said, and it limits people moving around while officers are working to resolve the incident.
But it also can incite panic in some students, faculty and parents, said Jim Rohrer, a psychology professor at Ball State.
"All it takes is some student seeing this guy with an umbrella, and they attribute it to a gun, they call it in and all hell breaks loose," Rohrer said. "There's no second guessing, no 'we need to check this out.' [Police] take it at face value, whatever the student says what they saw, and it begins the process."
Rohrer pointed out another case from 2013 when the university was secured after someone said they saw a gun in the Jo Ann Gora Recreation and Wellness Center. The lockdown went on for hours, and no gun was found.
But in case a gun is found, or in the event of an active shooter, the university is ready with a plan, Duckham said in an interview with the Daily News in October 2015. The emergency alert system — one that many students have voiced complaints about — is the start of that plan.
Each situation functions on a case-by-case basis, Duckham said. UPD meets regularly to look through the active shooter preparedness plan and revise as needed.
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