In 2003, after a College President in Ohio made clear that she felt sworn officers on her campus security force should not be armed, Police1 asked the question, Should campus cops carry guns? For some, amazingly, the answer still remains unclear. For others, the growing list of campus shootings is more than enough evidence to prove that campuses are clearly not immune to extreme violence and that officers who patrol them must be prepared to confront any situation, including active shooters. In light of the recent shooting at Northern Illinois University and the list of incidents below, that includes only a portion of campus shootings over the last decade, we repeat the question: Should campus cops carry guns? Post your thoughts below. |
14 incidents: 65 dead, 46 wounded
Compiled by The Associated Press
[Related: Visit PoliceOne’s School Violence Section]
Feb. 14, 2008: A former graduate student at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb opens fire in a lecture hall, killing five students and wounding 15 others. He then commits suicide.
Feb. 8, 2008: Latina Williams, 23, opens fire during an emergency medical technology class at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, killing Karsheika Graves and Taneshia Butler. She then kills herself.
Dec. 13, 2007: Two Ph.D. students from India are found shot to death in a home invasion at an apartment on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Oct. 1, 2007: University of Memphis football player Taylor Bradford, 21, who had been rumored to have won more than $3,000 at a casino, is fatally shot on campus in a botched robbery. Four men are later charged in the slaying, including one student.
Sept. 21, 2007: Two students are wounded at a late-night shooting at a campus dining hall at Delaware State University in Dover. Shalita K. Middleton, 17, dies Oct. 23 from her injuries. A student is charged in the shooting.
April 16, 2007: Cho Seung-Hui, 23, fatally shoots 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, injures at least 25, then kills himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
April 2, 2007: A 26-year-old researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle is shot to death in her office by her ex-boyfriend. Jonathan Rowan, 41, then kills himself.
Sept. 2, 2006: Douglas W. Pennington, 49, kills himself and his two sons, Logan P. Pennington, 26, and Benjamin M. Pennington, 24, during a visit to the campus of Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va.
May 9, 2003: A 62-year-old man with two handguns and a bulletproof vest fires hundreds of rounds during a seven-hour shooting spree and standoff at a Case Western Reserve University building in Cleveland. One student is killed and two others are wounded. Biswanath Halder, who authorities say was upset because he believed a student hacked into his Web site, is later sentenced to life in prison.
Oct. 28, 2002: Failing student and Gulf War veteran Robert Flores, 40, walks into an instructor’s office at the University of Arizona Nursing College in Tucson and fatally shoots her. A few minutes later, armed with five guns, he enters one of his nursing classrooms and kills two more of his instructors before fatally shooting himself.
Jan. 16, 2002: Graduate student Peter Odighizuwa, 42, recently dismissed from Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, returns to campus and kills the dean, a professor and a student before being tackled by students. The attack also wounds three female students. Odighizuwa is serving six life sentences after pleading guilty.
May 17, 2001: Donald Cowan, 55, fatally shoots assistant music professor James Holloway at a dorm at Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland, Wash., then turns the gun on himself. He leaves a 16-page suicide note expressing anger at a colleague of Holloway’s whom he dated briefly as a teenager.
Aug. 28, 2000: James Easton Kelly, 36, a University of Arkansas graduate student recently dropped from a doctoral program after a decade of study and John Locke, 67, the English professor overseeing his coursework, are shot to death in an apparent murder-suicide by Kelly.
June 28, 2000: Medical resident Dr. Jian Chen kills his supervisor and then himself in his supervisor’s office at the University of Washington in Seattle. Faculty say Chen, 42, was upset he’d be forced to return to China because of his academic shortcomings.