Incident Report

Oct. 16 - 24 – Compiled by: Seth Perlstein steps to bring our faculty and staff more awareness to the issue,” Pierce Associate Vice President Larry Kraus said. “If we hear the sound that we think might be a gunshot, we need to react pretty quickly.”

But Pierce hasn’t always been so prepared for such a scenario.

“If you would have asked me two or three years ago, no disrespect to anybody, I would have laughed,” Health Center director Beth Benne said. “We never had an emergency drill. So I think that Larry Kraus, Rolph Schleicher and the rest of our administration has made a concerted effort to prepare us.”

The workshop’s 18-person turnout “shocked” administrative analyst Victoria Romero.

“It is a wonderful event to have on campus, because we need to be aware of what’s going on,” Romero said. “Unfortunately, there’s not that many people participating in this event.”

Pierce College Sheriff’s Station

General Information: (818) 719 - 6450

Emergency: (818) 710 - 4311

10/16—School Closure

The campus was evacuated and locked down for five hours after Sergio Castanon Jr., a former Pierce student, implied an active shooter threat on Facebook.

Castanon Jr. was arrested, but was freed after posting $50,000 bail five hours later.

10/22—Petty Theft

A student’s purse was stolen after its owner left it in a library cubicle while she was in the bathroom between 5:50 p.m. and 5:55 p.m.

10/22—Student Incident

Tuesday, Nov. 4 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. the Mall

Winter Intersession 2015 [Jan. 5 - Feb. 7] www.piercecollege.edu/ schedules

Pierce College’s winter intersession schedule of classes has been released.

The intersession is a compacted, five-week schedule from Jan. 5 - Feb. 7., that offers a selection of core classes.

Online registration opened in mid-October.

The complete winter intersession schedule of classes is available at the web address below.

“The mentally ill are no more prone to violence than anybody else in the general population,” J. Levy said. “That’s a stigma that’s somehow been fixed to it, that we think whenever there’s an active shooter the person is mentally ill.”

Mentally unhealthy people have committed three to four percent of violent crimes, and mental illness has not been the cause for the majority of on-campus violence, J. Levy said.

“The common denominator in many of these shootings is the suspect in some way shape or form feels like they have been wronged,” J. Levy said. “Either real or perceived, they felt like they’ve been dealt an injustice. Mental illness may or may not tie into it, typically not.”

Whether related to mental illness or not, active shooter incidents on campuses are on the rise, McGuire said.

“We have really taken great

The Safety Task Force will show the 30-minute video “Shots Fired on Campus” on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 12:30 p.m., and Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 3 p.m., in CFS 91125.

“The students should come to our video,” Kraus said. “They should see the video and be a little more aware of the environment of an active shooter, and of situations that are not acceptable.”

A student waved a plastic machine gun at people on the mall in front of the bookstore. The student was detained, questioned and turned over to Dean of Student Services David Follosco.

10/24—Petty Theft

A female student was arrested for stealing a laptop in the library at 3:36 p.m. The investigation is ongoing.