Daily Toreador The
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23, 2013 VOLUME 87 ■ ISSUE 74
College shooting injures 3; Tech PD gives campus shooting advice By EFRAIN DUARTE STAFF WRITER
Three people were injured and one suffered a heart attack after a shooting occurred Tuesday at Lone Star College’s North Harris campus in Houston. At 12:51 p.m. Tuesday, a call was made regarding a shooting at Lone Star CollegeNorth Harris, Harris County Sheriff ’s Department Maj. Armando Tello said in a news conference. Tello said police arrived at the scene at 12:53 p.m. The altercation, Tello said, was between two people in the area of the library, and a handgun was involved. This was not an active shooter situation, according to a news release. A maintenance man who works for the college, Tello said, was injured in the cross fire of the altercation. He is in stable condition at a nearby hospital, according to a news release. Two individuals of interest were also injured and were taken into custody by law enforcement officials, according to the release. Tello said the incident is being investigated. Alexis Stiles, a freshman nursing major at Lone Star College from Katy, said she was not on campus when the shooting was reported and she never received notification from the college about the incident.
Stiles said it would be beneficial for a system to be set up to let everyone know of an incident like this when it occurs. Stephen Hinkle, administrative captain of Texas Tech police, said if something like Lone Star College’s shooting happened on the Tech campus, officers would be sent to block off the area and a TechAlert would be sent out to faculty, staff and students. “The police department would set up an emergency operations center,” Hinkle said. According to the Tech Police Department website, if someone sees an armed individual on campus, they should contact Tech PD at 743-2000 or 9-911. If the armed individual is outside the building, according to the Tech PD website, people are told to turn off all lights, close and lock all windows and doors, and move to a core area of the building. If it is safe to do so, remain there until Tech police have given an all-clear signal. According to the Tech PD website, if the armed individual is inside the building, students should flee the area safely, if possible. If students cannot flee, they should get down on the floor or under a desk and remain silent. If the armed subject comes into a classroom, according to the Tech PD website, students should attempt to fight the individual as a last resort, while hiding and fleeing out of the classroom should be first priority. ➤➤eduarte@dailytoreador.com
Kirby Hocutt announces football season ticket prices Texas Tech Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt announced the ticket prices for the 2013 football season in a news conference Tuesday. A total of 10 seating sections had their prices lowered while more than 1,000 seats were added at the lowest rate offered of $149, which amounts to less than $25 per home game. “The expansion of the $149 ticket option and the lowering of prices in 10 new seating sections in Jones AT&T Stadium reflect our commitment to selling out the Jones,” Hocutt said at the news conference. The athletics department sold more than 2,000 season tickets in the month of December alone, Hocutt said. Additionally, more than 300 requests for season tickets at the club-level seats have been made. “Reaction has been excellent and the excitement for Red Raider football has never been greater,” Hocutt said at the conference. “We are excited about that and want to thank Red Raider Nation and all of our fans for their tremendous support.” Newly-hired coach Kliff Kingsbury said he is excited to return to Jones AT&T
INDEX Classifieds................9 Crossword..............5 Opinions.....................4 La Vida..........................5 Sports........................7 Sudoku.......................2 EDITORIAL: 806-742-3393
Stadium. “I have a lot of great memories playing at Jones AT&T Stadium, and I am excited to make more memories as head coach,” he said in a news release. HOCUTT “ Te x a s Tech fans are very passionate and energetic, and that leads to an incredible game day atmosphere. I’m looking forward to a lot of great moments and exciting wins at Jones AT&T Stadium and am thankful for the support of Red Raider fans.” The Red Raiders have six home games scheduled for the 2013 football season, with matchups against Stephen F. Austin, TCU, Texas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Kansas State. “We’re going to ride together,” Hocutt said in the news conference. “It’s going to be a great future and we’re excited about the 2013 version of Texas Tech football led by Coach Kingsbury.” ➤➤sports@dailytoreador.com
WEATHER Today
Sunny
71
twitter.com/DailyToreador
www.dailytoreador.com
Serving the Texas Tech University community since 1925
34
ADVERTISING: 806-742-3384
Tobacco Talk PHOTO BY ISAAC VILLALOBOS/The Daily Toreador
STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION senator, Erika Allen, explains the current ideas being discussed were simply ideas and foundations as to whether or not Texas Tech should be converted to a tobacco-free campus during a town hall meeting hosted on Tuesday by SGA in the Mesa Room inside of the Student Union Building.
Students voice opinions of tobacco-free campus at town hall meeting By MATT DOTRAY STAFF WRITER
Health effects, personal freedom and the current limitations on tobacco use were discussed during Student Government Association’s first town hall meeting about tobacco at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The meeting involved the issue of making Texas Tech a tobacco or smoke-free campus, an idea brought forward by Senators Samantha Dunkerley and Katherine Lindley, a human development and family studies graduate student from Colleyville. Throughout the town hall meeting, faculty, staff and students openly voiced their opinions of a tobacco-free campus in front of the two senators and two volunteer panelists who study the effects of tobacco. “We only want to hear what the students want,” Dunkerley, a human development and family studies graduate student from Houston, said before the town hall started. “So this is your input to say, ‘I want tobaccofree, or I want to be able to smoke whatever.’ We’re here to listen.” Most of the discussion involving tobacco use was about the health effects, both for the person smoking and the person inhaling second-hand smoke. Raed Alalawi, an associate professor in the Department of International Medicine who was in favor of a smoke-free campus, said the health effects are indisputable. “The biggest growing segments of patients with lung cancer are second-hand smokers,” Alalawi said. “They have increased exponentially over the last 10 years. We’re getting people who never smoked, and you look at their history, and they’re second-hand smokers.” This is not a matter of how much smoke a person needs to inhale to have a negative impact on their body, Alalawi said. The fact, he said, is a lot of people
Thursday
Mostly Sunny
73 BUSINESS: 806-742-3388
39
being affected by cigarette smoke on Tech’s campus are those who have made a decision not to smoke. In response to accusations on health, Kelton Spinks, an architecture major from Houston, said Tech’s campus is very big and people have a choice whether or not to stand next to a smoker. Smokers are in open spaces outside, so it is easy to avoid the smoke, he said. “It’s a free-movement campus,” Spinks said. “Let’s say you pass a smoker everyday. Wouldn’t you get noticing that, ‘Hey, I keep passing that same person every day.’ You could change your route to maybe you get a different route and find a way through it.” As an architecture major, Spinks said he uses cigarettes as a stress reliever when he is between classes or working on a major project. Students who attended the town hall meeting that were opposed to a smoke-free campus said they know smoking is bad, but it is the freedom of choice that cannot be taken away. The purpose of attending Tech is to receive an education, Spinks said, and preventing him from smoking not only affects his personal freedom to make his own decisions, but it also affects his ability to study and focus. Shelbi Dickerson, a marketing major from Frisco, said she has asthma, and it is wrong to make students go out of their way just to avoid smokers. “I’m not going to go out of my way because one person wants to smoke,” she said. “It’s not just unpleasant for me. It’s unpleasant for everybody. Even for people who do smoke, they don’t like the smell of smoke. I think it’s selfish for people to say we should find a different way to go because you want to smoke.” Because of her asthma, she said she and her friends cannot eat outside Sam’s Place
West because groups of students sit outside and smoke. Dickerson said the stress relief tobacco causes is not worth the possibility of students walking through a cloud of smoke and having an asthma attack. Christopher Borgstede, a civil engineering and architecture major from Houston, said he started smoking when he was a correctional officer at a maximum-security prison. He said his majors force him to spend a lot of hours studying, and he smokes cigarettes as a way to stay focused and relax. Borgstede said he transferred to Tech from a school that had a smoke-free campus, and the ban on tobacco was not very effective. “Students could not find a place where they could get that nicotine fix, that little bit of stress relief after that hard class or in the middle of a project,” he said. “So, they gave up and started breaking the rules. SGA responded by implementing a fine of $100 per infraction, but scrubbed it when they found out students are broke.” While discussing the possibility of a smoke-free campus, attendees at the meeting talked about compromise and this issue does not necessarily need to be one way or the other. Spinks said the current rule of banning smoke within 20 feet of a building is not enforced, so it is wrong to think a new rule would be followed. Instead of making a tobacco-free campus, he said he agreed with the idea of making major sidewalks smoke free and the enforcement of not smoking within 20 feet of buildings. At the end of the meeting, Dunkerley said more discussion is needed. The next town hall meeting will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Jan. 24 in the Mesa Room of the Student Union Building. ➤➤mdotray@dailytoreador.com
Orange: Presidential Inauguration: Obama calls for equality OPINIONS, Pg. 4 FAX: 806-742-2434
CIRCULATION: 806-742-3388
DT
Twitter Follow The DT @dailytoreador
EMAIL: news@dailytoreador.com