I'm Ticked.

As you probably know, Lauren Burk, a freshman at Auburn, was shot last night around 9pm. About a half hour later, her car was found in flames in the parking lot beside the AU band’s practice field. Caroline found out in her 10:00 class. The first solid news reports didn’t surface until 10:30 or later this morning. At 12:50pm, 16 hours after the fact, Auburn University sent out its first email to the student body.

This, I find ridiculously unacceptable. It’s not unusual for Goob to park in that parking lot. 4 or 5 nights a week, I jog within 50 yds of where Lauren’s car was torched. When something like this happens, you MUST let people know immediately.

I’m not trying to blame the University or the police for what happened. To an extent, these things are practically unpreventable. And I know that the police are doing everything they possibly can to figure out exactly what happened and make an arrest. I personally know Assistant Chief Tommy Dawson who has been doing the interviews with the media all day. A really feel for him…he had to call Lauren’s parents last night. I can’t imagine what that must be like.

But I have to ask myself what the possible reasons are for them to wait so long to let people know this happened. Is it because they didn’t want to tarnish the University’s image? Were they hoping that they would catch the murderer before they had to issue a statement? Did they feel that it was an isolated incident, so no one else was in danger? Or maybe they were so busy trying to solve the case and find the person that nobody thought to involve the communications department.

I’m sorry, but none of these excuses are valid.

• The University’s communications department has full responsibility to prevent it from a tarnished image. The best thing they could have possibly have done was send out an AU Alert (that’s the system that can send a msg to all student’s cell phones) last night. It could have been as simple as “A student has been shot north of campus. It appears to be an isolated incident, however, students should remain alert and report anything suspicious. Police are investigating, and will release more information tomorrow morning.”
• It is very possible that they could have caught the murderer in the 12 or so hours that the city was out of the loop. But even if they had, would they have gained anything by keeping it a secret? And if you’re looking for leads, I have to think that sending a text message to 23,000 students would go a long way towards getting a few.
• Even if they were pretty dang sure that it was an isolated incident, what can they lose by letting people know what happened? I’m sure that Va Tech wishes they hadn’t pulled the ‘isolated incident’ card when they did. I completely understand the police keeping certain bits of information secret for investigation purposes…I have no problem with that. But there’s a big difference between that information and “news”.
• Was it a staff issue? I would have to imagine a communications staff as advanced as Auburn’s would have systems in place in the event that something like this occurred. I know several of the guys who work in that department, and they’re all great people. I just don’t understand how this slipped through the cracks.

I get the impression that the University sees this more of a city police issue. Nope. The city police are responsible for finding the killer. You’re responsible for making your students, staff, and community feel safe.