Amid growing anxiety over the handling of the shooting on the Fresno City College campus on Monday, the college is holding an open forum today to address concerns of the college community.
According to information released by President Tony Cantu’s office, the forum will be held in the OAB Auditorium at 1:30 p.m. Bruce Hartman, State Center Community College District police chief will present an update and answer questions regarding the incident.
Shots were fired Monday in the college’s southeast parking lot. Witnesses say that a group of four African-American men in their late teens to early twenties were firing what appeared to be 9MM rounds at each other in broad daylight.
SCCCD Police responded immediately to the scene, and Chief Hartman and Lt. Richard Gaines arrived in an unmarked car about two minutes after the first call came in.
“I immediately came out of the office and came over here,” Hartman said. “When I came into it that’s when it had gone to shots being fired … [the suspects] ran over into the neighborhood someplace in a southeasterly direction.”
Chief Hartman said that after he talked to a few people, he realized that there was no need to call a lockdown for FCC, so the college remained open. Both Heaton Elementary School and Fresno High School were put on lockdown immediately after the event.
Chief Hartman said that the college remained open because he was able to immediately determine that there was no threat to the campus. The decision to keep the campus open, despite the shooting, is at the center of the anxiety.
Many on campus questioned why the campus remained open and how the police knew the gunmen wouldn’t just come back onto campus after fleeing the scene.
Vicente Chavez, an FCC student said “It’s school, I mean it’s supposed to be a safe place what am I supposed to think now?”
Hartman said Tuesday that that a lockdown would have caused a panic that could have injured more people than the gun leading some on campus to ask, “If a lockdown causes injuries, why are there lockdown procedures?”
Additionally, the First to Know system, which is designed to send text alerts when incidents like this occur, didn’t send messages out until an hour after the shooting took place, and some faculty and staff said they did not receive the text even though they are signed up.
According to the SCCCD Campus Security and Fire Safety Report for 2012, “As soon as an emergency is identified, text messages are sent out to the affected campuses and college community, administration … The district makes email available to every student, faculty and staff member. These email alert messages are sent out immediately after the text messages are sent … when the emergency is over, an “All Clear” message is sent and the phone line is updated.”
Despite this policy, alerts for the shooting event of 11:05 a.m. did not go out to anyone until almost 1 p.m. The eventual message read, “Due to shots fired this morning, parts of Parking Lot E are closed due to a police investigation. The FCC campus remains open. No safety concerns.” There was no text alerts warning people away from the area, or a notification that the suspects were still at large.
Many members of faculty reported receiving the first of three emails on the shooting from President Cantu’s office at 12:07 p.m.
Despite the disagreement on whether correct protocol was followed, there is no dispute over the timing or location of the shooting incident.
Several students in the parking lot saw the shooting occur.
“We were in the car and we just ducked down,” said Ashley Reyes, an FCC student. “We just saw guns in the air ready to shoot.”
There were many witnesses, but because of the potentially violent nature of this incident, not all of them were willing to allow their names to be used.
“I was sitting in my car ready to take a nap … I heard nine loud pops and I thought it was fireworks at first. They were probably too loud to be fireworks,” said another student who witnessed the shooting. “Then I see two male suspects, one is in a vertical yellow striped shirt and he had dreads … they looked straight at me and I was still trying to duck to make sure there were no more gun shots going off.”
Two bullets were found inside of a parked car that was parked in the front row across from the Math Science Building and the Language Arts Building. There was nobody in the car at the time.
“They did a lot of damage but they didn’t hit one another,” said Hartman after the shooting.
Several students in the parking lot where the shooting took place voiced concerns about safety. “I don’t feel safe,” one student said. Another said, “This isn’t supposed to happen here.”
Plans are in effect to do active shooter training on campus on Oct. 29.
