Area Colleges React To Virginia Tech Shooting

EL PASO, Tx. – As the death toll rose to 33 in the Virginia Tech shooting,area colleges and students say they are prepared to respond if a similar situation unfolded here.

At the University of Texas at El Paso, Police Chief Cliff Walsh says that their response plan is coordinated with the El Paso Police Department, but was unable to release any additional specifics of the plan, “I know that your asking for what measures we would engage in but I think that would be detrimental to the cause we are trying to maintain, I really do.”

Students around the UTEP campus were naturally saddened and stunned to learn what happened at Virginia Tech Monday morning. Many had questions about how the UTEP Police Department would respond in a similar situation.

UTEP junior, Jesus Metsa says he agrees with the chief’s idea to keep specifics under wraps,”I agree with that to a certain extent because you don’t want to put too much information out because what if someone wants to do what they did in Virginia and they can work around it.”

Most UTEP students ABC-7 spoke with said they had no idea what is the best thing to do if an active shooter was on campus. One student said she would probably just cry and call her mom.

In contrast, New Mexico State says they prepare for similar security situations throughout the year.

With a campus of two square miles and more than 25,000 students and faculty at any given time, police say a similar massacre could easily put the campus into chaos and is something they never want to see happen.

NMSU Police say that ifsomething does happen, they’re as ready as they can be. They say the idea here, is to quickly eliminate the threat.

A three-officer demonstration on Monday shows how officers would approach an active shooter.

Campus police say these types of scenarios are conducted several times throughout the year in different campus locations.

NMSU police tell ABC-7 they would use an internal phone system where alerts are sent out to approximately 8,000 phones, while UTEP says they would notify students through e-mail if situation were to arise.