News
LOCKDOWN
By Ben Fields '15
April 17, 2015
What began as a typical Monday morning at Hamilton College quickly turned chaotic when a call came into the Office of Campus Safety. “I was out by the desk when the call came in, and immediately our dispatcher held up his hand,” said Director of Campus Safety Fran Manfredo. At around 9:40 a.m., Campus Safety received a call saying that there were two bombs in Kirner-Johnson with detonators on timers. With that information, Manfredo immediately left with an officer to clear the building and ensure the safety of the people inside. Only after he had left the office did the caller continue to say that he had an M16 assault rifle and as the timers approached zero, he would shoot the dispatcher, everyone on campus and all the police that responded. He added that he had been practicing and was a good shot.
While Manfredo was clearing Kirner-Johnson, he received word of the active shooter threat and immediately contacted Brian Hansen, director of environmental protection, safety and sustainability and member of HERT, to send a message to the campus community. Hansen, was able to get the message out to the community to initiate a shelter-in-place on the south side of campus at 10:40 a.m. Simultaneously, Kirkland Police, Oneida Country Sheriffs and the New York State Police arrived on campus responding to the bomb threat. Hamilton’s emergency response team (HERT) was gathering at their command location in the center of campus at the time.
The struggle that HERT and law enforcement wrestled with lay in the threat itself. Hamilton has various emergency action plans (EAPs) regarding different situations, but the plan for a bomb threat is almost directly contradictory to that for an active shooter. “He [the caller] knew what buttons to push,” State Police Troop D Commander Major Francis Coots, , told The Spectator. “He did it that way on purpose.” Eventually, HERT incident commander Karen Leach, vice president of administration and finance, made the decision to extend the shelter-in-place to the entire campus.
Throughout the situation there were seven different emergency response agencies on campus, but HERT remained the final authority regarding the campus and Hamilton community. The bomb and active shooter threat situation was a State Police operation and controlled by the New York State Police, specifically Major Coots, although they were assisted by Oneida and Madison County Sheriffs, New York State Office of Emergency Management, the FBI and the ATF. What this meant was that anything regarding the threat,and areas affected by it, were under the command of State Police, while anything else on campus was controlled by HERT.
Hamilton practices different emergency drills each summer and has conducted one shelter-in-place drill with the entire campus. Leach said she was grateful for the practice, and felt that HERT acted quickly and efficiently. HERT members were notified through the same type of system as the School’s general emergency notification system, and, after securing their staffs, gathered together in a command location in roughly 15 minutes. After State Police and HERT took stock of the situation, they decided to extend the shelter-in-place at 11:21 a.m., a little less than two hours after the initial threat.
Already, law enforcement had begun to search Kirner-Johnson with a bomb-detecting dog and handler. Major Coots explained that Hamilton is lucky in that there are so many canine units in the area. During the first sweep of the building, the dog got what was described as a “strong hit” on a locker on the first floor. At this point, the police made a second round with the dog and again got a hit on the same locker. They called for a second dog, which also hit there, although it did not the second time around. With that information, State Police decided to bring in a bomb technician from the Marcy, NY station, as well as one from Albany.
Although there is a bomb technician with specialized equipment in Marcy, New York State Police policy is to have two technicians assess each potential bomb. With the situation relatively under control, Major Coots did not feel it necessary to fly the technician from Albany to Hamilton. During this time, the police decided to partially evacuate the south side of campus; the buildings evacuated were McEwen, Milbank and Babbitt halls, Café Opus and Schambach center. A message was sent to the campus community explaining this at 12:23 p.m. Rather than using fire alarms, they elected to go door-to-door evacuating the residence halls. This process was slow and deliberate to ensure that nobody remained sheltered in the rooms. State police, accompanied by Manfredo, went through opening every door in Milbank and Babbitt halls to complete the evacuation.
Throughout the afternoon, as the campus remained sheltered, HERT continued to notify the community roughly every 30 minutes. At 1:40 p.m., Leach decided to cancel classes. Eventually, State Police technicians determined that the package in Kirner-Johnson was camera equipment. With that threat determined to be safe, they still had to sweep the rest of the building. Both College officials and Major Coots stressed how slow and deliberate this process must be, and explained that bomb-sniffing dogs need time to ensure the safety of the situation.
Despite the shelter-in-place remaining in effect, reports of students drinking and throwing Frisbees around the north side of campus reached many of those sheltered. Manfredo explained that he does not have the resources to manage the emergency situation and ensure that students responsibly follow directions. He did tell The Spectator that he sent an officer around the North Campus twice to try to get students to go inside. College officials stressed that not only was it irresponsible for students to ignore the shelter-in-place for their own sakes, but it also created an unnecessary risk for others in the event that there actually was a shooter. Major Coots also expressed that if the School issues a shelter-in-place order, it should not be taken lightly.
After roughly six hours, the shelter-in-place for the north side of campus was lifted at 5:30 p.m., and 27 minutes later it was lifted for the entire campus. Later in the evening, a State Police helicopter swept the campus rooftops, and troopers remained on campus throughout Monday night and Tuesday. Though the perpetrator remains at-large, Major Coots stressed that students should feel safe walking across the campus.
The investigation remains open, although Major Coots was not optimistic that they would apprehend the caller. He explained that there are many ways to “cloak a call” and if they are going to catch the person it would be through people calling to report hearing something. They have subpoenaed information from Northland Communications, Hamilton’s phone service, and are working through that data now, but Major Coots did not think that they would find the caller through data.
As with any emergency situation, there are opportunities for both the School and local law enforcement to learn and to improve. On Tuesday, HERT hosted a community debrief to hear perspectives and comments from Hamilton students, professors and staff. All the members of HERT (excluding those not on campus), President Stewart, Campus Safety officers, various members of senior staff, faculty members and roughly 30 students attended the debrief.
Leach began the debrief by saying that there were several questions that they are currently addressing: why was there such a long waiting period outside of Kirner-Johnson following the threat? Why did it take so much time to get the initial message out? Questions arose regarding the length of the shelter-in-place, the lack food and water in buildings, why the roads were open and the definition of the north and south side of campus.
During the conversation, Leach and Manfredo, along with State Police Trooper Jason Place, did their best to answer the questions that came up. Manfredo told The Spectator that if he had waited at the Campus Safety office long enough to hear the threat of a shooter, he would have immediately initiated the siren system. Jane Watson Irwin Professor of English Margie Thickstun asked why there were contrary orders of “shelter-in-place” and “lockdown” and what the difference between those is.
While many questions could be answered during the debrief, some were outside of the jurisdiction of the School. Major Coots acknowledged that the roads should have been closed and that was his mistake. He also stressed the importance of the relationship between the School and local emergency responders, saying, “The fact that Hamilton trains with local emergency services says something.” Hamilton will now continue to work with these agencies to determine what they can do better in case of future emergencies.
No doubt this incident will remain prevalent in the minds of Hamilton community members for a long time, but as Major Coots and Leach have said, Hamilton is safe. HERT will continue to discuss this event and to continue to refine and improve their responses in the future. HERT Chair Meredith Harper Bonham, senior associate dean of students for strategic initiatives and Title IX coordinator, expressed her appreciation for the comments they have received, saying, “[They] undoubtedly will inform our response and communications should future incidents arise—although, of course, we hope they don’t.”