Too Little, Too Late

At 10:25 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, gunshots were reported on the MIT campus near Kendall Square, approximately 1.5 miles from Harvard Yard, tragically taking the life of 26-year-old MIT Patrol Officer Sean Collier. A postdoctoral student called in the incident. At 10:31 p.m., another officer found the fallen Collier. By 10:55 p.m., MIT had officially alerted its students. At 11:33 p.m., over an hour after the officer had been confirmed shot, Harvard’s text message-based alert system reported the incident: “At 10:48 PM today,” it read, missing the correct time by over twenty minutes, “gunshots were reported at MIT. The area is cordoned off. Please stay clear of area until further notice.” A second alert followed with the same timestamp, explaining that the shooters were still at large.

This kind of lackadaisical response time poses an unacceptable security threat on an urban college campus, especially in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings earlier in the week. Harvard should investigate its failure to keep students apprised of the shooting at MIT, and revamp its alert system. The University’s first responsibility should be to keep students safe; its second should be to guarantee the accuracy of its emergency messages.

“I would say that because of the speed of communication on student email lists, very many students were aware of shooting within five or ten minutes,” said Danny Ben-David, an MIT sophomore, who heard the shots from his dorm room. My own informal surveys of Harvard undergraduates have found that the same was true on this campus, where most heard of the shooting first from friends rather than the Harvard alert. I myself first heard at 11:20 p.m., from a friend who had heard from a friend at MIT. By the time my phone buzzed with Harvard’s message, I had already confirmed that all five of my friends at MIT were safe, and I was on the phone with my mother.

Are Harvard and MIT’s emergency alert systems in active communication? It would appear not enough so. Does a shooting at MIT, separate from the use of explosives that followed this particular incident, pose a sufficient danger to the Harvard community to merit an emergency alert? Evidently yes, or else Harvard would not have sent a text alert warning affiliates to “please stay clear of area” in the first place.

To consider how truly outrageous this tardy response was, consider this counterfactual. Suppose that one evening, while all students are still awake, shots are reported fired somewhere on Harvard’s campus, just moments from MIT. Unfortunately, this is far from an implausible scenario. Within seconds, a Harvard affiliate calls in a report. Now suppose a Harvard University Police Department officer is hit, and that HUPD confirms the shooting within six minutes. Then suppose that the victim is a student.

How many minutes’ delay is it reasonable to expect before you receive an emergency alert? How long should it take from the first confirmation of gunfire to the pressing of the button to inform the community? Furthermore, what is the point of an emergency alert if you have heard about the situation from hearsay before you receive it?

As the clock ticked toward midnight and the shooter remained at large, Reddit, Twitter, and the local news were abuzz with rumors and tall tales. Within minutes, a rumor spread over social media of bombs and grenades on campus in the Quad and on Garden Street. Harvard students responded admirably, sharing a Google Doc where Quad House residents offered up couches and futons to stranded classmates. In my dorm room in Canaday, and I am sure in many others as well, we gathered around a group of computers and tried to establish what was going on. Someone was listening to a police scanner; someone else was refreshing Reddit over and over; someone else was on the phone, reassuring his parents. A cacophony of sirens on Mass. Ave. deafened Wigg residents, who heard rumors that the shooters were throwing live grenades from a moving car.

Harvard’s response? Silence from an alert at 11:45 p.m. until 12:43 p.m., when my phone buzzed again with “12:35 PM. MIT shooter remains active; avoid area” and a link to Harvard’s emergency website, but no comment or confirmation regarding circulating rumors of threats to Harvard’s campus.

I don’t want to point fingers at individuals, least of all at HUPD officers, who offered up nothing less than admirable and courageous service. But as a means of communication unto itself, Harvard’s emergency alert system failed miserably. If the tragic events of last weekend had gone differently, there might well have been truth to the circulating rumors. Harvard should have informed us about the shooting at the exact same time that MIT informed its own community. Instead, it offered too little, too late.

I learned this past Thursday evening not only that my Harvard peers are resilient and can band together in truly inspiring ways in times of crisis. But also—and perhaps I speak only for myself, but I doubt it—that in a time of emergency, I would prefer not to have to trust their unsubstantiated reports when I call my mother to tell her I am safe.

Harvard’s first job is to keep us safe, and its second it to keep us informed. Let us hope that an event like this does not come again. But if it does, let us be prepared.

Eyck A. Freymann ’16, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Canaday Hall.