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Welcome to The 1909, the podcast that takes an in-depth look at The State News’ biggest stories of the week, while bringing in new perspectives from the reporters who wrote them.
(Alex) It's Thursday, November 9, and this is the 1909 state news weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters, I want to start this week's episode with a warning we're going to be discussing the February 13 shooting will mostly be focused on the university's response, the promises made and often broken. But with that policy talk, of course, there'll be discussion of the violence that campus endured. If that's not something you're comfortable with, come back to this episode when you're ready, or next week when we'll hopefully be talking about something else altogether. With that out of the way, I want to introduce my guests, there are two great reporters who wrote two great stories this week evaluating where MSU lived up to and where it fell short of the promises made in the wake of the shooting. So with that you guys want to introduce yourselves?
(Owen) Yeah. Hello, my name is Owen McCarthy. It's my first year here at the State News. I'm a general assignment reporter for the campus desk. And yeah, thanks so much for having me on today.
(Emilio) Yeah. Hi, my name is Emilio prezzi Barwin. I've been working on state news since the fall semester, and just had been having a great time here. Thanks. Yeah. Well,
(Alex) it's great to have you guys both on the shows you both did some really great reporting this week that we wanted to talk about, you know, looking at. If you guys remember back to well, Amelia, you know, you're a sophomore, you were here for that. Oh, and I forgot you're fresh sophomores. Well, you are a sophomore? Yes. You guys remember that time. And you know, February, March last year, MSU Felek. Everyday, there was a new proposal, a promissory note, this thing happened that rocked campus that changed so many people. What are we going to do, whether it's with security, whether it's with mental health, whether it's with sort of broader campus policy. And so a lot of promises were made. And now, you know, we're months out from the shooting. And it's like, you know, we get to take a look and say, well, which of those promises have been kept, which of them have been modified, and you guys have both done that this week. So let's start with door locks. This was a big issue. After the shooting, it came out fairly quickly after that Bercy Hall, one of the buildings where a lot of the violence actually occurred, did not have door locks on many of the classrooms. And that that was an issue that was raised by faculty. Months before there was a recording that was leaked to a publication about a meeting with the board of trustees, and with faculty leaders all the way back in 2022, where a faculty leader had said, you know, there's no locks in Berkey. And the concern was sort of brushed aside, but then, of course, going to the shooting that had, I guess, fatal consequences. And so after that, MSU, you know, made a lot of promises about locks, what they would look like, and so Oh, and you want to talk me through just, you know, what did they say they were going to do?
(Owen) Yes. So, on March 1, actually, there was an article in MSU today, which is published by the University, and it said that 1300 classrooms would be equipped with new locks by the start of the fall semester. So yeah, that was the original promise.
(Alex) And they also got some recommendations from outside consultants, groups, they had hired to kind of look at the security and say, This is what you should do. I want to talk through those as well.
(Owen) Yeah, so there's a firm out of Ohio called Security Risk Management Consultants, or srmc. And they were employed by MSU, to basically do an after action review of the of the shooting and the university's response to it, as well as to make recommendations for safety going forward. And that's standard protocol. When there's a shooting is normally no organizations will will hire, hire that audit. So that review, one of the key recommendations that it made was that the locks that were installed on classroom doors needed to be store room function locks, which is a type of lock, where it's impossible for the store to be left in an unlocked state. So when the door closes, it's just locked automatically. But in reality, MSU has been installing a different type of lock. That's called a thumb turnstile lock in this is a kind of lock. You've probably seen it before where it can be left unlocked or locked. And you just have to do a quick turn in order to isolate
(Alex and Owen) a little lever, you kind of exactly like turn and the other type, it would just always be locked no matter what. Yes, that's great. Unlock it with it with a key or with Yeah, with a key. That's correct. I see. And what about, you know, the number of locks, you said it was 1300 that they said we're going to be installed? Where are we at right now? You know, about nine months out?
(Owen) Yeah. So again, that promise was 1300. By the start of the fall semester, here we are halfway through that fall semester, and that number has been walked back to about 800. And now they're saying that project is going to be done, the 800 goal is going to be done by the end of this academic year. And the srmc review, they found that it was 65% of the 1300. But again, that 1300 number is not the number they're going with it.
(Alex) it's not even that they're sort of partially through it's kind of total goal has been reduced. That's right. I see. Well, oh, and also, you know, in your reporting you there's a whole other thing that I didn't know about, which is these magnetic door door holders that I guess the firm recommended or something which isn't something I've seen before but you reported the MSE was maybe not taking that recommendation.
(Owen) Yeah, so that's correct there. They're not taking that recommendation. But yeah, what those magnetic door holders are and what they do is in, they serve in place of just traditional like Door wedges that you'll see around campus. So basically, it's just a little like hydraulic or pneumatic system that keeps the door propped open. But that would be linked to a system, or a feature rather called the emergency lockdown feature, where basically with a push of a button, all of those magnetic door holders and this is in the event of an emergency, hypothetically, all of those magnetic door holders would release and then the door would close. And if those doors had storing function locks, that would mean the magnetic door holder would release the door would close would be automatically locked.
(Alex) So they could not only you know, have locks on the doors, but they could actually somehow remotely just close all the doors on campus and lock it down. Yep. But that's that's something they are doing or they aren't doing. They are not doing that. I said, did they explain, you know, is there a rationale for why they won't be following that recommendation?
(Owen) Yeah, I mean, I was told, I was told a couple of things. For one, I was told that the decision to not use storing function locks had a lot to do with the issue of disrupting class. So let's say there's a class and session, someone gets up to use the restroom, they come back. And if they have those storm function locks, and someone's going to have to knock on the door, the teacher is going to have to stop the class. And it's going to be disruption. So that was one of the issues that was identified by those
(Alex) are the locks that automatically lock. Right, right. I see. So every time you left, there'd have to be a whole thing with getting back in. So what they're saying
(Owen) Yeah, and that's yeah, that's one of the things they identified. They also said, when they first started installing locks on classrooms. Once they said on March 1, that they were going to do that. I was told that they wanted to get started on that quickly. And they didn't have that recommendation from srmc. At the time. So I'm told that the box they started with using is is what they're going to use to finish the project.
(Alex) So and that makes sense to it. And even think of that, that you know, this audit that was just released a couple of weeks ago, they didn't really have any of that information when they started installing these locks. That's correct. But there's no plan to go back and at least at this point, change them? No, not at all. I see. And what about this sort of emergency? What is it the emergency button? emergency lockdown? Is that still something that they're planning some sort of central lockdown button that MSTP can control?
(Owen) Yeah. So that's going to tie into the development of the security operation center that I think we're going to talk about more later as well. But yeah, so basically, one of the things that the review recommended that there are plans in the works to do is they recommend a singular button that will be available to people at about like three remote locations, including the security operations center, where when you press that button, all campus buildings are automatically locked in one instance. And
(Alex) it like the outside of campus buildings.
(Owen) Yes, the outside. And the review says that that feature should have been locked to the magnetic door holders, but they're not doing the magnetic door holders. So instead, this emergency lockdown feature that will definitely be 100% in place once they upgrade to this new software. That's called genatech synergis. Yeah, once they upgrade to that, they'll have that emergency lockdown features so that with the press of a button, all exterior buildings can be locked in one instant.
(Alex) And what if you're outside?
(Owen) Yeah. So you know, that's a valid question to raise. That's obviously people wouldn't be able to get into buildings, if that happened. But that is just something that, you know, they told me that they've spoken to experts on this. And as far as safety, the safest thing to do is to have that emergency lockdown feature ready? Yeah. To an emergency.
(Alex) Well, speaking of, you know, being ready for these emergencies. Amelia, you did some reporting on active violence training at MSU, which is something that, you know, my understanding my time last year as a student here, was that something really did we really thought about much before the shooting, but afterwards, there were some promises made about, you know, ways that we could kind of train and feel ready for these emergency events, you want to first talk through, you know, what was said after the shooting about what would be done?
(Emilio) Yeah, again, in the wake of February 13. In that same March 1, newsletter sent out to the canvass university leadership said that active violent intruder training usually shortened to avi training would become mandatory for all students, staff and faculty on campus. And before then, this type of training was actually offered by MSU PD beforehand. However, it was entirely optional, I believe. Certain staff, including dining hall staff were required to do the training, but apart from that, it was largely not mandatory.
(Alex) I see. And so is that that mandatory training is that something that's happening now that's been acted on?
(Emilio) Well they promised it right? And then halfway through the fall semester, people began to realize that this training is nowhere to be seen. Yeah. And so then, you know, halfway through the semester, people begin to realize that this training has simply not been made available. As the university I speak with the university, Dana White at MSU. PD and Dan Olson, deputy spokesperson and they say you know, they revalue the decision, took some input from the community and decided to make that training optional.
(Alex) I see and Why was that? What was the input?
(Emilio) You know, they said that pretty vaguely, they just said, you know, we received input from the community, although it can be understood to be largely that people were concerned that that kind of training, some people just weren't emotionally ready for it.
(Alex) going through that training, which presumably would be, you know, kind of specific what to do if something like this happened again, they felt like that wasn't something they could force people to do right now.
(Emilio) Yeah, right. Now, it seems like the university wants people to do the training when they feel emotionally ready for it.
(Alex) I see. But people can if they'd like to, I mean, how can they access this training is something you go to is it
(Emilio) It has yet to be completed? So my understanding is that they are working on an online course sort of thing that will be communicated later in the semester. But as of right now, they're still working on it.
(Alex) I see. But there will be a way people will know if they want to opt into this. They can. Yeah, indeed, they say, you know, because obviously right now, we're less than a year away from the shooting, you know, that's understandable. The community members don't want to be forced to do this. Is that something that they feel? Is the permanent stance of the university? Is there room for that to change in the future? Do they talk through that at all?
(Emilio) Yeah, I mean, I got a statement out of Dan Olson, which, you know, his wording apply to the University views, the sort of training as necessary, but at the same time, right now they're making an optional, but he did leave some space open, he said, quote, well, we're not focused on punitive measures for compliance, we're still are we will reevaluate our effectiveness and student employee completion in a year to determine if we need to take additional action to ensure our Spartan communities, yada, yada, yada. Yeah. So there's room to you know, didn't specify much. But maybe some things will change as to how optional the training is, as time
(Alex) goes on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you guys have done great work this week, looking at what's you know, already been done. And I sure I'm sure you guys will stick with it as things develop further. And then I want to talk a little bit about, you know, some work that I had done about what we kind of feel is the next phase of this, which is what Oh, and you kind of alluded to it earlier, this security operation center, which is the idea that, you know, MSU, PD previously operated, you know, like a police department, they got calls, they responded to them. But now they want to have this centralized center that monitors campus, this AI camera system, and we'll, I mean, centralize the policing, so that everything goes through. They call it like the brain of MCPD, there's going to be these people who they've hired the column, cadets will sit in the center and watch the computers. And then we'll dispatch officers to various things. And that seems to be kind of the final form of this security response. And like you said, I want it still, we don't know exactly what the technology is yet. We're actually waiting on those documents from MSU. We don't know exactly, you know, how they'll be using it if they have guidelines around it. But I had an interesting conversation with Professor at American University who studies he wrote a book called big data, big data policing, you know, all about this sort of shift with a lot of police departments, less at universities he studied, but more so in large cities, with the shift to this sort of AI data driven policing, which is very different. What he said is that, you know, it kind of changes. Crime has always been sort of socially enforced with people, you know, you call the police when you see something that you think they should do something about, whereas this AI cam, or AI based campus wide camera system, sort of lets the police choose which crimes they will be in, won't be enforcing. And of course, the AI is choosing what is showing to them. And so there's a lot of complications there. I'm excited that you know, you guys and me, we're going to keep reporting on this as it grows. But that's where it feels like the next frontier of this. So that's something to look out for. But yeah, but thank you guys so much for coming on. That's all for this week. We'll be back next Thursday with more. Until then the stories we discussed and plenty more available at state news.com. Thank you to our incredible podcast director Anthony Brinson, my guests, oh, and Emilio and most of all, thank you for listening for the 1909 I'm Alex Walters.