By: Charlize Woods, Staff Writer
On September 6th, at 9:20pm, an RU Alert was sent out to all students of Regis University notifying students that a lockdown had been placed on the campus. This lockdown was a result of a call about three men who were seen walking towards the field house, and one appeared to have a shotgun. As the lockdown persisted, it was explained that police had been dispatched to the campus and would be clearing buildings one by one. From 9:20pm to 12:39am, Regis remained in lockdown.
In the little over three-hour lockdown, many students went through a great deal of emotions. Some students who live in Desmet Hall were stating how they have never had to deal with something like this, besides practice drills in high school, so they were at a loss of what was happening. My neighbor on the first floor stated that she was terrified and wanted to go home. She lives out of state so she was even more upset that she couldn’t be in the safety of her own home after the lockdown would end.
While most were terrified, I talked to a few students who claimed to have been incredibly irritated by the lack of communication that was given. In my first year writing class the morning after, many of my peers were stating how the updates can not even be defined as such; they were redundant reminders to stay in a safe place and not to move. While this is good advice, it wasn’t helpful in knowing what was happening.
Another issue that people had with the RU alerts the night of the lockdown was the text message alerts that were being sent out. It seemed to be a pattern of the full message being cut off. For example, one text message read, “DPD advises all Regis community members to remain where they are until they have finished clearing the campus. They do not want-” and then it cuts off completely until another message is sent out.
In the end of this whole mess, none of the men were found, but the campus was cleared to end the lockdown. This experience was, for many people, terrifying, and also frustrating. Towards the end, many students stated that they were just tired, had to go to the bathroom, or were starting to just go to other rooms in their residence hall to talk about the whole situation. The only good thing that could come from such a terrible experience is the RU alerts being improved, God forbid something like this happens again.
