BruinAlert, the warning system designed by the university to text or email students with warnings about potentially dangerous situations near campus is everything but the safety assurance program it’s supposed to be.
In fact, it seems as if most students interact with BruinAlert in just one way: receiving test emails or texts.
UCLA needs to be more proactive and less stringent in the way that it assesses potentially dangerous situations, and should commit to using BruinAlert more often and for more purposes than they do now.
BruinAlert is sent when relevant agencies – Such as the Los Angeles Police Department – verify there is an emergency incident on campus. UCLA’s Office of Emergency Management has said it takes about 45 seconds after the verification to push the alert to the community. But quite often, BruinAlerts are not sent because the Office of Emergency Management has not verified the incident.
It’s the verification part of this process that’s the issue. Too often, the Office of Emergency Management takes too long to get the required information and ends up doing nothing. If the Office were to loosen its standards and include more frequent BruinAlerts but advise that it might have some preliminary information, there may be less confusion among the student body.
The consequences behind not expanding BruinAlert are real.
Early on during welcome week, a student was murdered in the North Village, specifically on the 10900 block of Roebling Avenue. The police believe the suspects attempted to cover up the homicide by lighting the apartment on fire.
The morning of the fire and murder, no BruinAlert message was sent. This means that no students were properly informed about the fire, the possible danger of criminal activity in the area, or disruptions caused by closed streets and ongoing interrogations.
The lack of information caused trouble for a lot of residents. Many residents who left their apartments on the blocked-off streets weren’t allowed to go back due to the ongoing investigation. The residents were told that if they attempted to cross the caution tape, they would immediately be detained and listed as a potential suspect. Students were told one by one that the rules were indefinite, leaving them to wonder when they could return safely to their homes.
And even in situations that aren’t as immediately pressing as that one, BruinAlert can still be an asset.
Earlier this year, Westwood and other parts of West Los Angeles faced a power outage. After some residents of the affected apartments called the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, they were informed that the estimated time of repair would be later than 3 a.m. Students quickly disseminated throughout Westwood, campus and the dorms to continue on with their studies and assignments.
This could have been a perfect opportunity for BruinAlert to inform students which streets were receiving power at what time, and provide a list of open places that they could go for Internet and air conditioning.
BruinAlert could have helped students plan around the closures and power outage, but instead, people were subject to mass confusion and had to rely on Facebook and friends for information.
It is true that more frequent and less verified BruinAlerts may, at times, cause some excess worry. However, this is far milder than the panic that could ensue when left to gossip and social media posts of those without access to official law enforcement services.
The constant tests throughout summer have proved that BruinAlert is a working resource. But working and useful are two separate things. BruinAlert has hardly been used, despite the occurrence of many events during which it could have been genuinely helpful to students.