For many students, their first remarks about the IU Notify alert system began on the night of January 17th.
This was the night of a shooting that resulted in one death and one injury at Knight’s Landing Apartments on North Walnut Street. The sirens IU sophomore, Karsen Floyd, heard that night initially, seemed almost routine.
“I just remember hearing a bunch of police sirens, and not really knowing what was going on,” says Floyd, who lives just minutes from where the fatal shooting occurred. “It was just more like ‘whats going on this time’.”
Floyd says that night turned out to be anything but routine, and not a single student in Knights Landing or Floyd residency, Stadium Crossing, was notified of the situation. They later learned from police it was a drug deal gone bad. In fact, not a single IU student knew about it through the IU Notify alert system. Students only heard about what happened that night through word of mouth and the news articles that came the day after.
IU says ther distinction in that case is that it happened –technically–off campus.
With gun violence on the rise in Bloomington and surrounding areas, students thought this would be the only time that the IU Notify system would fail to make them aware of certain situations, especially ones involving this type of violence. Unfortunately, just over 2 months later, there would be another incident.
This one just occurred last Friday on the corner of Kirkwood and Dunn- a popular foot traffic area for students and the Bloomington community. This specific corner is home to many of the Bloomington bars, such as KOK, Stacks, and Upstairs, as well as multiple dining options lined along the landmark.
Early Friday morning, yet another shooting occurred in the parking lot behind Wheel Pizza and the Upstairs Pub. This particular area is just a short 2 minute walk to the edge of Indiana University’s campus. Again, students were not notified about the shooting through IU Notify.
“I could’ve been in danger if I was out on Kirkwood, but, I mean, I didn’t get any news about it until probably the next day,” Floyd said.
Some students winder why they receive alerts for issues such as a pipe burst, but not alerts after one of the nearby shootings.
According to Captain Craig Munroe, IUPD‘s Captain of Administration, alerts go through a specific process in order to be sent out to students.
They use what’s called a decision tree. It’s a digital system where the specific incident goes through a simple “yes” or “no” process. From there, a decision is then made to see if the situation is an immediate and ongoing threat to students on campus.
“If we feel like it something that we need to notify people about because it’s going to be ongoing, it’s gonna take a little while to resolve, and people need to know about this as soon as possible.”, says IU spokesman Chuck Carney.
Although the system and public officials do the best they can to ensure safety and respond to those particular cases, IU admits that there’s still room to improve, and they’re doing everything they can to ensure students are safe and notified of these incidents both on and off campus.
“We’re always working on this. This is something that’s talked about all the time within our leadership to make sure that we’re making the right decisions and really at the base of it,” says Carney, “it’s safety of everybody on this campus that’s paramount.”