Notes from the Editors: The community needs to be informed, Bearcat Alerts are there for a reason

MAKAYLA POLAK Editor-in-Chief @kaypolak

SIDNEY LOWRY Managing Editor @sidney_lowry

Our mission at the Northwest Missourian, the independent learning environment for student journalists, is to provide the best source of information for the community it serves by merging campus and community. We dedicate our time each week to make sure our readers are up to date on all things happening in Maryville.

Last Sunday, April 9, Maryville Police Department received a call indicating a possible shooter threat on campus. After handing the information off to the University Police Department, all local law enforcement worked together to dismiss the immediate threat. Maryville Police ruled out the possibility at its dispatch center during the phone call after realizing the caller was unable to answer basic questions like location.

UPD did not initially release a Bearcat Alert, Northwest’s emergency text message service, before making sure all buildings were clear. The reason behind this decision is unknown, as are many other questions, because UPD won’t discuss the case.

Calls like these have been happening to institutions across the country, and people are on edge, according to an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. This article said there needs to be an alert notification that takes place, but if it is determined to not be a credible call, people need to be informed of that as well.

The Clery Act was made over 30 years ago to protect people on campus and be transparent when it comes to campus crime. This threat should have been released on Bearcat Alert the minute the call came in whether or not it was considered to be an actual threat.

When students picked up the April 13 edition of the paper and saw there was a terrorist threat four days earlier, questions arose. People asked why no one knew about this, why there was no Bearcat Alert and want to know the basic information. The only information we have is from the

Crime Log and talking to MPD about the initial call.

There have been 164 mass shootings since the beginning of this year. Any time someone hears about a threat made on campus, or anywhere within their proximity, they want to know about it.

This time there may not have been a problem, but, like many others, we wonder what happens when you dismiss it again and it is a real call. There was no communication to The Missourian on how this was handled by UPD, other than Maryville Police telling us officers checked buildings on campus.

Our priority is to our readers, and we are still working to get the most information out to the public as it comes to us. We apologize for not having the information regarding the threat in our April 13 paper when the threat was released in the Crime Log.

Although Northwest does have a “Hostile Intruder Procedure,” in which it states how to respond when there is activity that is immediately causing death or serious injury, it does not have a published procedure for an active shooter threat. A well-informed community allows for the best response when a situation like this happens. We need to know when there is a possible threat to our lives, whether it is believed to be credible or not.

If this were to have been a threat of someone being on campus ready to cause harm and it was already dismissed before any sort of notification had been released, there would have been serious repercussions.

We understand not wanting to send out an alert, causing a mass panic about the threat, but people needed to know there was a possibility of being injured, especially when this is a part of a very real issue people are worried about.

UPD should be putting student safety first. Police officers shouldn’t dismiss a shooter threat until they are completely positive it is not. Though we understand this process takes time, the Bearcat Alert is set in place to inform the public until the threat is totally dismissed.

The information provided in this paper, April 20, is the most information The Missourian has received thus far. We are dedicated to providing our readers follow-up stories as the information on the threat is released.

OUR VIEW: