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UNM can assure its students that its police department and University staff have comprehensive plans to deal with an active shooter on campus.
“[UNMPD] wouldn’t be surprised by an active shooter event on campus,” said UNMPD Public Information Officer Lieutenant Robert Haarhues. “Our officers are trained in active shooter response.”
UNMPD would immediately respond to a shooter on campus. APD would follow. These two forces would set up a perimeter to contain the shooter, until the APD SWAT team could arrive to take direct action. Police from the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department as well as New Mexico state troopers would be called on as needed, Haarhues said.
“You could stick an APD officer, someone from the sheriff’s department, or a state trooper into the same situation as the UNMPD officer and they’d all respond the same way,” Haarhues said. “We all take pages from the same playbook, with our ‘best practices’ procedures. The transition (between forces) would be almost seamless.”
UNMPD consists of 37 officers, including 21 patrol officers who handle calls. The size of UNMPD has risen from 31 officers in 2011. Haarhues said UNMPD typically has four or five officers on patrol duty at a time.
Gun laws on the UNM campus are fairly straightforward.
According to UNM’s University Business Policies and Procedures Manual, only “law enforcement officers in performance of their authorized duties” and “ROTC students conducting required and supervised drills” may carry guns on campus. The guns must also be “inoperable” in the case of ROTC students.
The UNM Student Code of Conduct duplicates the passage from the Business Policies and Procedures Manual and prohibits student possession of firearms in University dorms. According to the code, if firearms are found in a student’s dorm, the weapons will be impounded by UNMPD and the student will be subject to “appropriate disciplinary and/or criminal action.”
UNMPD Operations Lieutenant Trace Peck said that to his knowledge the time this happened in recent years was May 2008. According to a Daily Lobo article covering the story, a student was arrested on charges of unlawfully carrying a firearm on University property.
New Mexico Concealed Handgun Carry Act states that concealed carry weapons are prohibited on school campuses. The UNM Business Policies and Procedures Manual adds that gun owners must turn their weapons in to the UNMPD for the duration of their stay on campus.
Haarhues and Peck both said there was a gun fired illegally at UNMH in January 2011, but none of the people involved were students and no one was injured.
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A New Mexico statute permits anyone over the age of 19 to carry a firearm in their car, and applies even if an individual drives his or her car onto campus.
“The law permits this because the state considers a person’s private car to be an extension of their home, where you can keep a firearm,” Haarhues said.
Haarhues and Peck both said they have never heard of nor encountered any problems with that law at UNM.
Haarhues said he recommends watching the YouTube video “RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. Surviving an Active Shooter Event,” which describes how to handle a shooting situation.
“It’s one of the best videos on the subject that I’ve seen and everyone should look at it,” Haarhues said.
The University maintains an emergency response plan that is customized for the differing characteristics of individual buildings and departments. FEMA emergency training is also provided to UNM staff in supervisory roles.
“A shooter on campus is just one of many scenarios we’ve planned for,” UNM emergency manager Byron Piatt said. “We’re prepared for a wide variety of occurrences.”
UNM Emergency Management maintains an emergency guidelines and procedures guide. It can be found at emanage.unm.edu.
“We provide plans for both students and faculty and staff,” Piatt said. “We tell you how to prepare before something happens and how to respond if it happens.”
The University’s guide must be updated every two years, but according to Piatt, it is updated more often.
“We usually update the plan three to four times a year, when we run through it,” Piatt said.
UNM also provides email alerts and LoboAlerts via text message to notify students of safety threats on and near campus.
“Email is about 10 times slower than texts, and that’s just the limitations of the technology,” Piatt said. “We encourage everyone on campus to sign up for text alerts to stay up-to-date.”
Piatt said 90 percent of text alerts are received by students within 30 seconds after the text is sent out. The remaining 10 percent can take around 30 minutes to get to a student, he said.
“Out-of-state phones and generic phones like TracFone give our system more trouble, and some carriers take longer,” said Piatt. “Also, the student may simply not have their phone on or may not check their phone.”
According to UNM Emergency Management’s guide, the first thing to do in a scenario involving a shooter or a suspicious person is to ensure your own safety. Then, call 911 for assistance, with as much detailed information as possible. Finally, notify others of the dangerous situation and relocate to a safe place.
Also, in the midst of a campus crisis of any nature, Haarhues said that only those with concrete information should call 911.
“We don’t want to flood our dispatcher with questions during an emergency situation,” he said.
