ALICE and “Run. Hide. Fight.” are ways students can keep themselves safe if there is an intruder on campus at Bowling Green State University (BGSU).
ALICE and “Run. Hide. Fight.” are both national programs used around America, both developed by the Department of Homeland Security.
ALICE is an acronym that the BGSU police use if there is an intruder on campus. It stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. Michael Campbell, the director of public safety and chief of BGSU Police, explains each step of ALICE. The first part of ALICE is alert.
“You’re alert could be a whole bunch of things. Maybe you hear something, you see something, maybe your alert is through your emergency notification,” Campbell said.
The next step in the ALICE program is lockdown.
“Whether that be locking in the doors, hiding in places, barricading places to really provide that hopefully that safe barrier,” Campbell said.
Inform is the following step in ALICE.
“When I’m getting through my text messages or other avenues and trying to evaluate that information to make appropriate decisions,” Campbell explained.
Counter is the next part of ALICE. Campbell states that the counter should be the last resort that students should resort to. If students can, they should evacuate, which is the last part in ALCE, and get away from campus.
Each campus has its own way of protecting its students. The University of Toledo (UToledo) uses “Run. Hide. Fight.” to protect their students from an intruder.
“So basically the same principles, just some different terminology, but all the same focus on how we can train our community to hopefully make safe decisions in a situation like that,” Campbell said.
UToledo and BGSU both offer training sessions for students and community members.
“We do on-campus trainings for our community as far as responding to violent intruders, talking about methods to increase safety, whether that be evacuating the area, whether that’s a situation where you have to hide, barricade or lock down in an area to create a safe barrier,” said Campbell.
In a building, there are safeguards to help students get out of the building or to inform the police.
“We look at exit points and buildings, we look at lighting, security of buildings, some buildings are lacking at certain times, some are open at certain times. I think all these are security measures,” Campbell said. “There are emergency phones. Everyone’s carrying cell phones when we talk about communication, trying to reach police services or emergency response.”
If there were an on-campus intruder, what would happen if a student called 911?
“They go to the Wood County Sheriff. Once they realize you’re here, they transfer the call back to our dispatch. We run a 24/7 dispatch operation. We can receive all the cell phone information and talk to the caller as well, without going into great depth throughout,” he said.
Michael Bratton, media relations manager, wants students to know that there is more than just police training that BGSU is doing.
“In addition to police training, BGSU leverages multiple tools and resources, including AlertBG, to inform the learning community about its response to a hostile intruder situation, should one happen,” Bratton said.
For more information: https://www.bgsu.edu/public-safety/bgsu-emergency-management-and-response.html
