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What were they thinking?!?!
From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:45:38 -0500
************************************************************* OpenCarry.org Press Release - February 26th, 2008 ************************************************************* FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ************************************************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------- College Class Held Hostage by Crazed Administration --------------------------------------------------------------------- On Friday, February 22nd, students in a history class in the Moore Building at Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, NC, were startled when an armed man burst into the room, placed a gun to the professors head and held the entire class hostage. The professor, Jingbin Wang, was terrified as were other students in the Moore Building who barricaded themselves into classrooms or tried to jump out of windows. (1) Imagine the terror of parents and loved ones who received panicked cell phone calls from those who thought they might be facing death. Other students were almost certainly contemplating how to stage a last-ditch, desperate group attack on the gunman. Ultimately, the situation was resolved when the gunman abruptly announced that he was an undercover campus security officer who was participating in a preparedness drill. Amazingly, the administration of ECSU had planned and executed a preparedness drill which involved kidnapping a professor and a classroom full of students while brandishing a firearm! Neither the students nor the professor were aware of the drill. The university administration points to an email alert that was sent literally only minutes before the attack. They contend that the purpose of the test was to see how quickly an alert would pass by word of mouth from those students who had signed up for email alerts to those who had not. The answer, by the way, is "Not quickly enough". Regardless of the administration's thought process or reasons for the attack, these are not valid defenses to the crimes that were committed against those present in the Moore Building. And yes, crimes were committed. When you hold another person against their will at gunpoint, that is kidnapping. You cannot simply later put the gun away and say "I was kidding.". The same is true of placing a gun against a professor's head. A teaching contract does not obligate an instructor to allow themselves to be terrorized at the whim of the university administration. This entire episode placed the University, the state and the taxpayers in a position of immense liability. Had students been injured trying to flee the building then ECSU would have been liable and had any of the students, instructors or employees present in the Moore Building decided to fight back, then any resulting injuries or deaths would also have placed the taxpayers of North Carolina in an actionable position. Clearly the fallout from this disastrous decision is far from over. Some students have reportedly sought, or are planning to seek, counseling for the trauma they suffered and at least one student has asked to meet with the administration to discuss their future college plans. FOOTNOTES --------------- 1) Local College Causes Stir With Gunman Drill, WTKR News Channel 3, Feb. 25, 2008, available at http://www.wtkr.com/global/story.asp?s=7923804 _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
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- What were they thinking?!?! Richard M. Smith (Feb 26)