In Part 2 of our series for National Campus Safety Awareness Month we’re going to share a few ways that campus safety departments can more effectively collaborate with local law enforcement agencies to help safeguard the campus community during a crisis situation.
The importance of effective collaboration was demonstrated just last week in Tampa when over 100 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies conducted a manhunt for the suspect in multiple assaults of students near the University of South Florida campus.
With the emergency notification and timely warnings requirements of Clery, colleges and universities across the nation have implemented some type of mass messaging system to meet those requirements. While capabilities will vary between systems, the following are 4 ways that campus safety departments and local law enforcement agencies can provide a more coordinated response to campus incidents:
By enabling local law enforcement to utilize the Emergency Notification System, they’re empowered to alert the campus community of dangers they become aware of prior to administrators and campus security. This ability provides law enforcement agencies the opportunity to issue life-saving advance warnings much faster and to more effectively coordinate their response with campus safety officials.
A single police dispatcher could send 10,000 messages instantaneously to cell phones, landlines, social media, email and even digital signage alerting the campus community of danger. This ensures a much higher penetration rate and delivery success ratio.
Using the Emergency Notification System’s real-time two-way communication capabilities would enable local law enforcement, campus safety officers and admins to maintain a constant exchange of information during an incident, for a more coordinated response. This also permits the campus community to respond with information that could assist public safety officials, such as the last known location of the suspect(s).
Law enforcement agencies and campus safety officers would have access to detailed maps of the campus and adjacent areas to more effectively coordinate lockdowns and/or evacuations during a crisis situation. *It would be prudent for those maps to be uploaded to the Emergency Notification System ahead of time to ensure they’re available when needed.
These are just a few of the ways that campus safety departments and local law enforcement agencies can work more effectively as a team when the campus Emergency Notification System is utilized for a crisis in or around campus. While the decision to empower local law enforcement agencies to use the campus Emergency Notification System is a decision for individual campuses, it’s certainly worth serious consideration to further enhance campus Emergency Response Plans.
For a customized demonstration of Regroup’s cost-effective Emergency Notification System to see firsthand how your campus safety department and local law enforcement could provide a more coordinated response to a crisis, please call us (775) GRO-UP10 or REGISTER HERE for an online demonstration.
The post Bridging the Gap Between Campus Safety Officers and Law Enforcement During Emergencies Utilizing a Campus Alert System appeared first on Regroup.