Campus Response to a Gunman

Campus Response to a Gunman

As a working professional in intelligence, counter-terrorism, and/or protection, your approach to the same subject matter might be different than that of the authors of the case study. In your view, what are the case study's strengths?

The approach to handling the situation should involve preventing future incidents. The reason why is because, there was a lack of coordination and policies for dealing with these kinds of challenges (which made the underlying situation worse). As a professional who is involved in counter terrorism, one of the most important elements for moving forward after these incidents is to change the security protocol. If this had occurred, the intensity surrounding the aftermath of the event would have been reduced. As a result, one of the biggest strengths of the case study is to show how these issues were creating to an atmosphere of concern about secondary attacks. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)

Moreover, some of the other strengths of the case study include: identifying the roots causes of the problem and the lingering impact on different stakeholders. The combination of these factors is helping to provide specific insights as to what conditions led to these events. This serves as a warning sign about what to look for in someone (who is showing signs of disturbing behavior). In the future, this will help to create polices that can prevent these types of incidents from recurring. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)

For example, during the aftermath of the response there were issues with these events impacting students and faculty members. Instead of seeking out the state's support, in dealing with these challenges, there was a focus on maintaining a closed campus. This made it difficult for life to resume as normal and it helped to contribute to a secondary health crisis. If officials had understood this and sought out some form of assistance, they would have been more successful moving forward (by learning from the incident). These elements are important, because they are showing how the case study is highlighting the mistakes that were made during and after these events. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)

What are the case study's weaknesses?

The biggest weaknesses of the case study are that it is taking a reactive approach. This is troubling, because it is showing how university officials should have seen the warning signs from this individual and responded. Yet, in reality no one knew that this person was going to walk into a classroom and start shooting. This is illustrating, how the case study is constantly pointing out problems and criticizing the college. The difficulty is that no one understood, the nature of the threat they were dealing with. This is a weakness, by showing how the case study is not providing new ideas for dealing with these challenges in the future. Instead, it is taking a revisionist kind of approach and asking why. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)

Evidence of this can be seen with the passage that says, "The question of campus preparedness surfaced during discussions with the psychologist about the process of debriefing individuals who had been involved in the October incident. Considering how many diverse groups and individuals had been affected by this incident, a final theme that emerged from our data was the need for a campus wide plan." (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352) This is given, due to the fact that there was a massive shooting on the campus (resulting in the loss of life). As a result, the case study should have shown specific issues which contributed to: the problem, impact from the lack of a comprehensive strategy and what factors need to be taken into account. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)

Would you have framed the study differently? If so, how?

Obviously, the situation would have been framed differently. The way that this should have occurred, is through talking about the events and the effect they are having on various stakeholders. This is accomplished by discussing the case in logical manner and pointing out what factors contributed to the problem. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)

Once this takes place, is when there will be a discussion about how to effectively create an appropriate response plan and what factors must be taken into consideration. During this process, there will be an examination of what tools have worked successfully for other organizations and their possible impact on the college. Then, there will be a discussion about how to: properly prepare everyone for identifying and responding to the early warning signs. (Asmussen, n.d., pp. 337 -- 352)