Miami University Responds To Attack on Ohio State University's Campus

BY MAGGIE THOMAS
Miami University journalism student

Miami University took multiple steps to make faculty and students aware of emergency procedures on campus after this week's attack at Ohio State University.

In Columbus, Abdul Razak Ali Artan drove over a curb and plowed his car into a crowd of people at 9:52 a.m. Monday near OSU's Watts Hall. He then exited his car and proceeded to stab people with a butcher knife. In less than two minutes, Artan injured 11 people, before he was shot and killed by OSU police officer Alan Horujko.

According to CNN's report on the attack, OSU sent a campus alert at 9:55 a.m. to warn the community of an active shooter. Following the alert, at 9:56 a.m., Ohio State Emergency Management tweeted, “Buckeye Alert: Active Shooter on campus. Run. Hide. Fight. Watts Hall. 19th and College.”

The attack, which attracted national media attention, caused universities like Miami to remind students, faculty and staff how to act if such a crime were to face their community. Miami responded to the attack in a few different ways.

On Tuesday morning, the university posted an alert titled “How to react to a shooter; register for text alerts,” on the myMiami page frequented by students, faculty and staff.

The alert shared a link to Miami’s emergency procedure website, which gives suggestions for how to react in the case of different emergencies. The website includes a video titled “RUN HIDE FIGHT: Surviving An Active Shooter Event,” where law enforcement personnel explain how to react to an active shooter. “Run, Hide, Fight” is law enforcement's advice in situations with an active shooter.

The university also invited members of the community to sign up for emergency text messages or schedule group safety presentations from the campus police department.

Additionally, Miami officials issued a press release on Tuesday, providing various resources available in case of an emergency. The release offers information about reacting to violent acts, fires, severe weather and other emergencies.

Claire Wagner, director of Miami's News and Communications Staff, explained Miami's comprehensive reaction to emergencies.

“Miami, like many universities, has an alert system,” she said. “That would include a text alert, phone alerts if necessary, broadcast over the blue phone towers, email, and digital screens to alert people to stay away from an area.”

Wagner also explained how the university would report the incident.

“We would do follow-up texts to let people know the status….Depending on how it played out, we would have media calling. If we needed to, we might start putting statements online so that we weren't answering a phone call every minute and a half from a reporter,” she said.

Above all, Wagner emphasized that when reporting the incident, the priority would be the Miami community.

“We would also share it with our on campus community first, because that’s most important," she said.

Photo: The Miami Police Department's "active shooter" video instructors are available on YouTube. -- Contributed photo