By Theodore Kim and Kathy A. Goolsby
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS - Duncanville is adding police at City Council meetings, while Dallas could add more. Schools and colleges are thinking of further tightening security.
And Plano officials plan to give council members a refresher course on what to do in emergencies.
A series of chilling fatal shootings recently -- at a suburban city hall and several schools and colleges -- has spurred new security reviews at public buildings here and beyond.
On Thursday, a student at Northern Illinois University opened fire in a campus lecture hall, killing five and wounding more than a dozen before killing himself.
Just over a week ago, a gunman killed five and injured two others during a city hall meeting in Kirkwood, Mo. Three died in a shooting at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge last week. Recent school shootings have shaken communities in California and Tennessee.
The shootings have resonated among elected officials, municipal workers and school administrators given the scale, frequency and public settings in which they occurred.
The incidents also have fueled a heightened consciousness of security not seen since last year’s Virginia Tech massacre.
“Safety should be one of the main issues in any group, whether it’s city hall or a school board,” said Rita Crump, president of the Mesquite school board. “We live in a time when there are a lot of mixed-up individuals. Sometimes they become uncontrollable.”
A new wake-up call
Virtually all communities examined the security of their municipal buildings after the Sept. 11 attacks, and many schools and colleges revamped lockdown procedures in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting.
Other high-profile shootings at schools, courthouses and public buildings, including one in Fort Worth in 2005, also have spurred changes.
Still, experts say the shootings in Missouri, Illinois and elsewhere should serve as a new wake-up call. That is especially true for smaller city halls, which traditionally have had little, if any, security.
“You can’t have security everywhere all the time. But there has to be the awareness that government at every level is potentially a target,” said Brandon Graham, associate director of the Office of Homeland Security at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Although schools and colleges have made security a focus, most cities, limited by resources and the thought that “it won’t happen here,” keep a minimal security presence at best: sign-in sheets, a police officer in the corner or a camera in the ceiling.
Overall, the push to improve security in public spaces such as state campuses and city halls has sparked a debate in communities about how best to weigh safety against citizen access.
The goal is safety. But officials are leery of turning campuses and city halls -- the quintessential symbol of open government -- into inaccessible fortresses.
“The public assumes rightly that local elected officials, as their representatives, will be accessible,” said Donald Borut, executive director of the National League of Cities, an advocacy group.
Schools more ready
That debate has become more heated in recent years as city halls, school facilities and courthouses in many communities have received security upgrades.
The 2005 Fort Worth shooting, in which a gunman fired but missed a government staff member in the city hall lobby, prompted officials there to install metal detectors and post marshals at council meetings.
Other communities, including Dallas, also have upgraded security with armed patrols or other measures in recent years. Highland Park posts about three armed officers at council meetings that are usually sparsely attended, said public safety director Darrell Fant.
But most city halls are probably ill-prepared to respond to a catastrophic shooting, experts say. In contrast, schools and colleges have taken a hard-line approach. Most of the changes have come in response to the Virginia Tech massacre, administrators say.
A number of school districts have installed surveillance cameras, locked their doors and funneled visitors through front offices during school hours. Several area districts also use scanners to check each visitor’s driver’s license against registered sex offender databases.
Meanwhile, colleges such as the University of North Texas and Texas Christian University have gone high-tech, installing systems that send text messages to cellphones in an emergency and using e-mail alerts, phone information lines and postings on the schools’ Web sites.
The Dallas County Community College District has software that can broadcast emergency messages over the intercoms of campus phones, even breaking into a conversation if the phone is in use. The district also may soon install one-way locks on classrooms to hold back intruders.
Southern Methodist University relies on a closed-circuit TV system along with its Web site, e-mail and voice-mail systems. The university also formed a student committee that shares information on students who may need counseling or extra help.
Tough to safeguard
Installing similar security systems or procedures is not possible or realistic for many cities, some of which have stretched budgets and police forces as it is. Others point out that completely ensuring safety is all but impossible regardless of the security measures taken.
“If you’ve got somebody who’s willing to die, there’s not much you can do to stop them,” Chief Fant of Highland Park said.
The Kirkwood city hall assailant, Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton, killed two police officers during the Feb. 7 rampage, including one officer outside city hall. Police later shot and killed him.
School officials point out that college and school campuses are even more difficult to protect than city halls.
The larger the university, the more difficult it is to safeguard, said Ben Agger, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and co-author of a book on the Virginia Tech shooting.
“It’s really hard to stop this, at least on college campuses,” he said. “All you can do is try to deal with the kids and young adults who are clearly troubled.”
Mr. Graham said the key is to mix security measures that are visible, such as uniformed police and cameras, and invisible, such as undercover police, bulletproof armor installed on council or lecture podiums and silent alarms.
“Anything as tragic as Kirkwood is a wakeup call,” said Robert O’Neill, executive director of the International City/County Management Association, an advocacy group. “I guarantee, that evening, that city halls across the country were having conversations about security.”
Staff writers Ian McCann, Dave Levinthal, Elizabeth Langton, Jeff Mosier and Matthew Haag contributed to this report.
CITIES ARE REVIEWING SECURITY ...
Several North Texas cities are reconsidering security in the wake of last week’s shootings at a City Council meeting in Kirkwood, Mo.:
--Dallas --Reviewing security procedures. Could add more security staff.
--Duncanville --Adding police officers for public meetings.
--Fort Worth --Re-evaluated building security but decided against making immediate changes.
--McKinney --Considering improving security in the renovated city hall and new security measures at public meetings.
--Rockwall --Reviewing security measures at public meetings.
--University Park --Considering improving security in renovated city halls.
--Plano --Expanding the scope of a review of building security that is already under way. Giving city council members a refresher course on emergency procedures.
... AND SO ARE SCHOOLS
For North Texas schools, enhancing security has been an ongoing process. Among the changes:
Public school districts
--Scanning driver’s licenses against registered sex offender database
--Requiring all students and staff to wear ID badges
--Requiring school uniforms for students
--Locking outside doors during school hours
Colleges and universities
--Sending alerts to cellphones, e-mail accounts and campus phones
--Posting alerts on Web sites
--Installing emergency phones across campuses and one-way locks on classroom doors
--Establishing hotlines during emergencies
Copyright 2008 The Dallas Morning News