UCLA’s overly conservative use of the BruinAlert Mass Notification & Advisory System should be re-evaluated to better prioritize safety over inconvenience.
On Aug. 3, a bomb threat caused university police to evacuate the John Wooden Center, Pauley Pavilion, Student Activities Center and parts of Bruin Walk . Both university police and the Los Angeles Police Department’s bomb squad responded to the threat, but the university did not send out a BruinAlert – something that should have been done immediately.
UCLA’s Office of Emergency Management uses the BruinAlert system to deliver messages via text or email that are meant to warn students, faculty and staff about any danger on campus.
The office’s director, Art Kirkland, said it is a security risk to disclose the exact criteria the office considers before alerting people of a threat. He added that the office is careful not to send out an excessive number of alerts, so subscribers are not inundated with messages.
But in the case of last week’s bomb threat, this board believes an alert was warranted. Campus members deserve to know when they may be in or near an unsafe area.
UCLA is a large and active university, and it should be understood that the campus is never truly empty. Although the threat happened on a Saturday evening, while classes were likely not in session, numerous people were still in the buildings that were evacuated.
“About 60,000 people who were nowhere near campus would have gotten the alert if it had been sent out Saturday night,” Kirkland told the board.
Some might have seen the notification as an inconvenience, but to the small proportion of our community still in and around campus, this is vital public safety information.
Other universities use their alert systems more broadly, something UCLA should consider doing. California State University, Los Angeles uses its alert system in any situation where students, faculty and staff are potentially in danger, said Paul Browning, a university spokesman.
For example, Browning said that after police received a bomb threat in April, Cal State Los Angeles administrators decided to use the emergency alert system and the entire campus was cleared in a matter of hours.
Kirkland said UCLA tries to use the alerts only when police cannot efficiently evacuate the area on their own. For instance, an alert was sent out when a suspicious package was found in a parking structure during morning rush hour and police could not control every exit.
In the end, alerting more members of the campus community to potential danger would help law enforcement by casting a wider net of public safety information.