In Brief

Questions After Virginia Tech Tragedy

In the midst of an uncertain and dangerous situation, how do you assess the scope of the risk?

By Michael Goldberg

June 19, 2007 — CSO — CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS Among the many questions in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy on April 16, in which a student gunman killed 32 people and then himself, were several for crisis communications managers, such as: In the midst of an uncertain and dangerous situation, how do you assess the scope of the risk? And what method do you use to communicate with people potentially at risk?

In this case, there were two shooting incidentsone that killed two people at about 7:15 a.m. at a dormitory, and a second, more deadly outburst at an engineering buildingseparated by about two hours. Media reports have indicated that campus police were given information about the first shooting that led them to question a man not involved in either incident. University officials sent out a campuswide e-mail at 9:15 a.m. about the first incident in the dormitory; 911 calls alerted authorities about a second shooting incident at the engineering building about 15 minutes later, Computerworld reported.

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