Allegations of deficient handling of a reported rape last Halloween on the University of Utah campus likely informed the university’s emergency response to a fatal shooting near campus Monday night.
While authorities never found evidence to corroborate the reported sexual assault, Communications Director Chris Nelson said Wednesday that the incident prompted officials to update infrastructure — including a new emergency notification system and lighting around campus — and protocols.
That renewed focus on safety likely impacted how officials responded Monday, Nelson said.
“I think last year’s incident certainly influenced actions that were taken, and those actions kind of helped us inform this year,” Nelson said.
Though the reported rape incident didn’t wasn’t explicitly brought up, Nelson said it was probably in the “back of our minds.”
For instance, university officials sent an emergency alert about the shooting by 9:05 p.m., about an hour after they learned student ChenWei Guo had been shot near campus near Red Butte Canyon.
A student complaint filed last year with the U.S. Department of Education — which elicited a federal probe that found the university deficient in how it handled the incident — took issue with the more than two hours that passed between university officials learning of the reported rape and when an alert was sent to students.
Nelson said university officials struggle with how quickly to send out information in crisis situations, considering that early information is sometimes wrong.
Alerts can be sent via text message, email and through social media, like Facebook and Twitter, Nelson said.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way of always instantaneously letting everybody know, but I think we’ve definitely worked to get better at that over the years, and we’re always trying to get better,” he said.
In connection with the shooting, the university sent 13 alerts to students, beginning with the initial report of shots fired Monday night and ending Tuesday evening with a message from University President David Pershing about the tragedy and its resolution, according the university’s website.
In most emergency situations, initial alerts are sent by emergency preparedness staff, and police dispatchers can send alerts if necessary. After that, communications officials step in and work with police to send out alerts.
When lockdowns occur, as they did Monday, Nelson said university officials typically defer to what police think is necessary.
Nelson said it’s too early to evaluate the university’s response to the shooting, though he said it seemed to go smoothly, despite some students who were off-campus during the incident but who live on-campus not being able to go home during the lockdown.
“No question it was inconvenient, but I think in a really dynamic, fluid situation like this, I think we would always rather take the criticism of having inconvenienced people rather than put someone in harm’s way,” Nelson said.
Had the weather been cooler Monday night, Nelson said he thinks the university would have tried to find places to shelter students who were stuck away from home.