Faculty member at UNC shot dead: is school really a haven for students?

Is this the price America pays for legalizing guns? Each day, 12 people die from gun violence, while another 32 are hurt by these catastrophes. Each statistic represents a human being who not only had hopes and dreams, but a family that loved them dearly: who would’ve possibly known that death was going to knock on their door on that very day?

In late August, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported that the suspect who fatally shot a faculty member, Zijie Yan, was arrested. The shooting prompted a campus-wide lockdown that lasted for almost three hours and resulted in security alerts that disrupted classes at public schools on the first day of the school year. The question that comes to mind is: did UNC respond correctly when faced with this threat?

Although shootings themselves result in physical and mental damage, the extent of that damage is also determined by how efficiently and effectively a school acts–and in this case, UNC failed to do so.

As the blaring alarm rang while an eerie, cold voice repeatedly announced that there was an active shooter on campus, vthe students reported that they were “pretty much out in the open ready to be shot.” Despite the head of the school confidently asserting that students had “QR codes to access convenient safety procedures,” the teachers and staff were visibly panicked and unprepared, as faculty led the students out onto the sidewalks.

There are a few procedures the school missed while trying to respond to this incident, with one of the most essential ones being a lack of communication. Neglecting the safety precautions they were told to implement, the majority of teachers continued to teach 30 minutes after the alarm rang, ignorantly putting both themselves and the students at risk of being harmed. Additionally, several doors were allegedly “unable to be locked,” causing students (even those who were taking cover) to be completely vulnerable. The teachers’ lack of training was another alarming issue the school faced, resulting in students barely having anyone to rely on.

Although UNC managed to arrest the shooter, they lost the life of a valued faculty member, which raises the question - if this were to happen again, would things turn out differently?

Serena Park