The Day After, Warning System Draws Wide Praise at St. John’s

St. Johns University installed a text-messaging emergency system this summer, and found out in late September that it works! This article is in The New York Times by Ellen Barry and Winter Miller and may require registration for access:

[T]his summer, when St. John’s carried out its annual review of security procedures, Dr. Pellow lobbied for a change he had long been considering: a text-messaging system that could send information about an unfolding crisis to individual cellphones.

That system underwent the ultimate dry run on Wednesday when a gunman in a mask strode onto the St. John’s campus in Jamaica, Queens. Though no one was hurt, the incident showed that large, dispersed crowds — at least 10,000 students were on the campus at the time — could respond calmly in the face of alarming information.

Yesterday the technique was praised by everyone from Gov. Eliot Spitzer to Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman of Queens, who presented legislation requiring text-messaging systems at college and university campuses across the state.

After the crisis at Virginia Tech, “everything from bullhorns to texting was considered,” said Dr. Pellow, who is also the university’s executive vice president. “How do you communicate instantly? Because the expectation now is instant communication.”

The campus yesterday was suffused with relief, a rare celebration of something that did not happen. A lawyer for the gunman, Omesh Hiraman, said his client had suffered a psychotic episode because he was unable to digest medication prescribed for schizophrenia. He will be arraigned today at his bedside at Bellevue Hospital Center on charges including fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, said Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney.