In the wake of last week’s incident of an on-campus gunman at the University of Texas at Austin, LSU Police Department Chief Maj. Lawrence Rabalais said LSUPD has a plan of action if a shooting were to occur on campus.
Rabalais said the likelihood of a shooting isn’t a matter of if it will happen, but rather of when it will happen.
“Plan for the worst, hope for the best,” Rabalais said.
LSUPD officers practice and train with both the Baton Rouge Police Department and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Department, Rabalais said.
Rabalais said LSUPD trains every patrol officer to handle a situation like the one at the University of Texas this past week.
He said LSUPD trains every patrol officer to handle an armed suspect because most of these situations are over in one to two minutes.
The response time for BRPD Special Weapons and Tactics is about one hour, according to Rabalais.
LSUPD also has a trained SWAT team, Rabalais said.
Rabalais said coordination between law enforcement agencies takes time because LSUPD is on a different radio frequency than BRPD and the EBR Sheriff’s Department.
LSUPD typically has five to 10 officers patrolling the campus on a normal day, and there are a total of 68 officers on the force, Rabalais said.
Both Rabalais and Morris emphasized the importance for both students and faculty to communicate unusual behavior to someone at the University, whether it be the Dean of
Students, the Department of Residential Life or LSUPD.
“Police forces on college campuses … are trained in a different environment,” Morris said. “LSU Police are here to help you.”
Morris and Rabalais encourage students to contact any campus authority if they are uncomfortable talking to the police about any suspicious or out of character behavior.
LSUPD tries to intervene and give people help, Rabalais said. He emphasized that LSUPD does not necessarily report a student to the Dean to punish them, but rather to provide that student with help if they need it.
Rabalais encouraged everyone on campus that if they “see something, say something”.
Both Rabalais and D’Ann Morris, interim director of the Emergency Operations Center, said the emergency text message system is effective.
Twenty-seven people have authorization to send out an emergency text, Morris said.
An emergency text is necessary when an immediate response from the campus community is needed, or if there is an immediate threat posed to the campus community, Rabalais said.
LSUPD doesn’t want a non-police member making the decision to send the emergency text in a dangerous situation, Morris said.