NIU will probe shooting response
As campuses across the state bolster emergency-response systems, Northern Illinois University officials launched a review Thursday into their handling of mental-health issues and the Valentine's Day shooting.
"We want to be aware and think very deeply about things we have done well and things we could have done better," said NIU President John Peters.
The review will probe how students were notified of the shooting as well as the counseling available to them in the aftermath. The panel is also charged with analyzing the safety net on campus for those suffering from mental-health issues.
The Feb. 14 gunman was a former longtime NIU student with a history of mental-health issues, but who also came off as bright and sane to many friends and professors.
Investigators continue to probe why a former student killed five and wounded 15 others before shooting himself to death in Cole Hall on the afternoon of Feb. 14.
In the weeks leading up to his rampage, the gunman stopped taking medication prescribed by a psychiatrist, started stockpiling weapons and began covering his body in bizarre tattoos while attending graduate school at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.
Police don't believe the gunman notified anyone of his intentions or knew anyone in the lecture hall he targeted. A full report on the investigation has yet to be completed.
The NIU panel will begin its review as the state releases a yearlong study of campus security early next month. That report was commissioned following the Virginia Tech shootings in which 33 people including the gunman were killed.
That tragedy -- the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history -- prompted many Illinois universities to review their own security and emergency-response systems.
Some enhancements continue to come out.
Northwestern University officials in Evanston ran their first test of a campus siren system Thursday. The siren will be used in emergencies to deliver both verbal and tone warnings to students on campus, said university spokesman Charles Loebbaka.
Western Illinois University in Macomb put a text-message plan into action this week following reports of shooting threats.
Plus, Eastern Illinois University in Charleston has started collecting phone numbers from students and staff for an automatic text-message warning system. More than 500 signed up Thursday, said university spokeswoman Vicki Woodard.
"Any time a university gets hit, it brings out these kinds of discussions more and more," Woodard said.