Sac State ENS fails

Sacramento State is generally a safe campus. So when something like Wednesday's officer-involved shooting occurs, you'd think the Emergency Notification System would be put to use.

A 23-year-old Sac State student was beaten so severely that he later died at the hospital. The suspect, 19-year-old Quran Jones, also a Sac State student, was shot by police after he lunged at them with a knife. At this time, they were believed to be roommates, according to an article from the Sacramento Bee.

The incident occurred in the American River Courtyard, which just opened this semester.

However, no ENS message was sent to the Sac State students who have signed up for the service in a timely manner, despite the degree of Wednesday's events.

The ENS was instituted shortly after, and because of, the April 16, 2007 on-campus shooting at Virgina Tech.

According to the Sac State ENS portion of its Web site, "Examples of such events would be a campus shooting, bomb threat, hazardous materials spill, flood or fire."

A campus shooting -- the first event listed, yet the system was not put into action for the first time until two hours after the episode.

The first notification came at 4:31 p.m. in the form of an e-mail to SacLink e-mail accounts -- an e-mail account which might not be checked regularly. It said the suspect had been removed from campus.

To my surprise, I did not receive a text message about the incident unitl 10:22 p.m. -- approximately eight hours after the altercation had reportedly started. The message was to inform people that the campus was safe.

The text message I received at 10:22 p.m. on Oct. 21

But what about the message informing students, faculty and staff about what had happened?

Sac State officials didn't want to cause a panic among students, but this situation could have, and should have, been handled a lot better.

Case and point: Students received an ENS message on Oct. 13, alerting them that classes were on, as scheduled, despite the weather and some minor flooding.

If the rain and minor flooding are enough to get an ENS message sent out, then why didn't an officer-involved shooting and a violent beating, which ultimately ended up in the death of a Sac State student, get the same, if not more, exposure?

I found out about the incident on Facebook.

Yes, I said, "Facebook."

Having to find out about something of this magnitude via Facebook and not through the ENS is absolutely unacceptable.

The ENS is a tool that should be utilized to its fullest capacity. However, it shouldn't be abused. In my nearly two semesters at Sac State, I have received maybe two or three ENS notifications before today. And nothing was ever as significant as Wednesday's events.

The ENS is in place for a reason. Here's hoping Sac State officials use better judgment next time when decided whether to, or not to, issue an alert.

Better yet, here's hoping there won't be a next time.