A closer look at the University of Arizona’s campus safety failures

BY KIARA ADAMS & BAILEY EKSTROM @dailywildcat

Released Monday, March 27, the security report on the University of Arizona’s response to events before, during and after the on-campus killing of professor Thomas Meixner highlights four main areas of failure across multiple departments.

UA President Dr. Robert C. Robbins hired the PAX Group security consulting firm three weeks after the Oct. 5, 2022, shooting.

The PAX Group “supports leaders and organizations in navigating crises and conflicts with facts, authenticity, trust, and relationships,” according to its website.

In an Oct. 10, 2022 email to the university community, Robbins shared the report would be due to him in 75 days. Three months passed from that deadline by the time the report was finally released. Robbins held a press conference the same day the report was released in the McKale Center media room on campus. There, he estimated the university paid the PAX Group around $250,000 to create the report.

As the report lays out, the main areas of failure the PAX Group found within the UA are: the Threat Assessment Management Team, University Crisis Response, the University of Arizona Police Department and Communications.

Along with analyzing each of these failures, the PAX Group offered recommendations on how to improve for the future, with 33 in total.

Threat Assessment Management Team

The Threat Assessment Management Team was found to not be running an effective TAMT in a way that is viewed as best practice for an organization of its size and scope.

The report stated that due to the inefficiency of the TAMT, it led to multiple opportunities for the alleged shooter, Murad Dervish , to continue to “harass and threaten” University of Arizona community members.

The lack of an effective TAMT led to organizational stress of administrative entities such as the Dean of Students, Office of the General Counsel and the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.

The report called the stress on administrative functions, “a decentralized and fractured approach to managing the risk which limited coordination and communication.”

It was revealed that TAMT did not have a full-time leader, dedicated support or formalized meetings and reviews. The lack of each of these things are stated to have, “limited its effectiveness to fully assess, coordinate management, and implement a strategy (including advocacy) for protective orders, mental health or community interventions and the arrest(s) of the Subject.”

UAPD and Dean of Students were both responsible for leading the TAMT together, but it was found that neither department was equipped to properly assess and manage threats alongside pre-existing departmental duties.

One of the recommendations offered to the TAMT was that there should be an established president of the TAMT allowing the team to “begin properly developing policies, processes, and guidelines.”

Alongside the establishment of senior leadership, the report recommended that the TAMT lead should meet with the president “at least annually and on an as-needed basis.”

University Crisis Response

Another area of failures found was in regards to how the university handles crises. The report blatantly stated that drills and training for emergencies are not prioritized by senior leadership and that Emergency Response Plans for each unit/ department are encouraged but not mandated by senior leadership.

Emergency response fundamentals were found to be considered inconsistent across departments on campus, furthering the fractured responses to threats and harassment of UA community members.

The final thing that was found to be inconsistent is the understanding of risk, or what is considered to be a threat, and what should be deemed “concerning.”

This lack of consistency across departments left them to manage things internally until situations reached a level of potential violation of the University Code of Conduct or threats of violence.

The report said, “without consistent, dedicated crisis response, the University is forced to move from crisis to crisis, which results in overwhelmed assessment and response teams and continued misunderstandings between involved parties.”

Four university initiatives came in the wake of the Oct. shooting: Training for the Community, Counseling and Psych Services Crisis Response

Team, Crisis Communications Plan and a Centralized Camera Policy.

Training for the community includes a request from Robbins via email on Jan. 18 that the community reviews or participates in the active shooter training offered. CAPS proposed a crisis response plan for an Alternate Response Program to establish a designated trauma response and mental health crisis team.

The university’s Central Marketing and Communications team is in the process of proposing a “Crisis Communications” plan that

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