UBC Lockdown
I was in the middle of a lab when a lab technician came in:
“Can I have everyone’s attention? There’s been a police incident and we need to lock you inside the room. No body can leave until further notice.”
We thought he was joking and most of us didn’t even hear him.
“It sounds like I’m kidding, but I’m not. There are helicopters going around.”
And he locked us inside. We looked at each other, and I almost missed my timed experimental procedure.
A buzz spread across the room. I grabbed my cell phone. Already a missed call from Tina.
I called back.
“Did you hear what happened?” she picked up quickly. “There was…”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“I was coming out of my tutorial and going to the Bio Building, and then this cop or whoever came and pushed me to the side, and asked me ‘are you going to the building, or coming out?’, and then I said I was going to a lab, and then I saw 5 guys with big guns running into the building… holy…”
“Where are you?” I asked again.
“I ran as far away as possible, now I’m in the Crane Library… holy…”
“That’s good, stay there. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up.
Couldn’t get through to my parents nor my brother until after the lab.
As we shakily resumed our experiment, David called. I told him I was ok, and I had to hang up on him cuz I needed to do the next step of the experiment. That probably gave him a good scare, so he called right back within 20 seconds.
As I expected, when I finally got through to my mom, she was like: “what’s up?”
“Er, so you didn’t hear the news.” I told her what happened.
She was shocked: “rifles?! The SWAT team? You better be as alert as the SWAT team and stay safe!”
As far as I know, everyone is safe. Got an email from someone in the Bio Building when it was locked down, asking the if lab members I worked with last summer were ok. Someone replied that “everything seemed stable” in the Biological Sciences, they are just annoyed by the lack of updated information.
I think UBC did a good job already. I have had at least 4 emails telling me to stay where I am. My brother called and told me he was also locked down quite quickly with his chemistry lab.
I don’t see how they can improve the responsiveness much, unless they manage to get a hold of everyone’s cell phone number and send text messages to 50,000 cell phones at once. They did start a project like this I think, but I don’t think there is a good response rate to this effort. Maybe more people will sign up for the cell phone alert program after today.
* * *
* * *
Sick and tired of being told nothing? Nothing susbstantial in the media? Try this:
http://www.nowpublic.com/emergencies/ubc-biological-sciences-building-under-police-lock-down
The “Crowd Powered Media” may be the best place for information for an emergency like this. As I was leaving the lab, I wanted to check to see an update on the situation, but no luck with Google, and UBC website’s latest update was at 3:58. Now it’s 6:15pm.
Filed under: Diary, UBC | 26 Comments
Tags: incident, lockdown, panic, police, threat, UBC
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Can you tell me what happened?
I have friends in that building and I can’t get in touch with them. Nobody is replying to my emails and I have no clue what’s going on.
I’m in Perth, Australia on Co-op and I’m genuinely worried.
E-mail me back, please.
I’m not sure what triggered the police response, but the campus lockdown was lifted before my lab was over. I’m not sure whether Biological Sciences is still locked down right now, but people in the Bio building said everything seems stable .
Please try contacting your friends again. I don’t believe anyone was hurt, but I wish my best for the safety of everyone.
Just an update: Bio building is evacuated. No one was hurt.
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=0f82c4a0-bca9-4563-b295-3b5999a65252&k=96917
My sister works in one of the labs in the BioSci building and was utterly disgusted at the email telling people they were in lockdown. She received the email 30 minutes after she was already in lockdown.
I think it’s just ridiculous that no one knows what was going on other then lots of police officers and SWAT teams and helicopters and bomb dogs.
UBC really needs to get their act together.
1) With regards to the cell phone comment, we were asked to voluntarily input our phone numbers into SSC after the VTech crisis. Many people did so, and where were the emergency text messages? Since there already had the phone numbers, it should not have been difficult to put their plan into action. Unless of course it was too expensive.
2) The office of S. Toope sent out emails concerning the situation. Emails? Seriously? Who checks their emails while in class, or walking to and from class? “Oh, I think I’ll just whip out my laptop right now in the middle of the road and check my email.”
3) Why are the details of the exact situation being kept secret? Everybody on campus is still wondering what happened, speculations and rumours are increasing by the minute, and there is a certain degree of panic in the air.
Ridiculous.
This is a great account of what transpired.
I wanna know why UBC didn’t use its new text message emergency system thing to let us know what was going on. What’s it for if not for this?
Ryan:
Thank you
Knox, J and No Info:
I agree with both of you that today would be the day to utilize the emergency cell phone system.
I don’t know anyone who signed up for the program, but if you signed up and didn’t get a message, then perhaps UBC has given up this program due to lack of student response.
I also agree that the campus community, especially those locked in the Bio Science Building, should have been kept updated more. I recognize that the situation may be too urgent and chaotic to give an accurate and complete account of the incident, but at least we should be told about which areas are safe, which are being searched, which areas to stay away from, and perhaps what triggered the police action (because it would have been nice to know whether we are facing a bomb threat, a biochemical threat, a gunman…)
According to the recent UBC press release, 40% of students are on the text msg thing, but they didn’t use it today “on the advice of the RCMP” . Bullshit- what good comes from restricting information like that? I think the RCMP was way too tight lipped about this whole thing and it only makes things worse than they would’ve otherwise been.
creepy…
Thanks for the account of the situation. I was in my residence when I got a forwarded email from my grad program office and was worried about the students in the BioSci building.
J:
Thanks for pointing that out. I wonder why RCMP would advise against a mass msg to people’s cell phones… I mean, they allowed emails, but not cellphones? Do they reckon that cell phones will reach people too fast?
blueseaglass:
Yes, but it’s over now
tyfn:
No one was hurt. Now we wait for more explanations.
You’re welcome
I’m really glad everything’s fine and I’m able to see you write this blog now…I called you as soon as I saw the email, and I figure it was probably not a bomb threat because they locked down the building, not evacuated the buildilng. Doesn’t make sense to keep everyone in the building with a ticking bomb. That would limit it down to a threat that involved shooting, or biological hazard…shit man..don’t go to that building tomorrow…
BUT there’s this one thing that I must say…I’m so sick and tired of all these shooting and killing these days, WTF is going on around this place! Just this morning I picked up a copy of Metro only to find out that an 18 years old guys was burned to death by 4 men he didn’t know….sigh…..let’s just hope that everyone who love and care about will remain safe and sound during this FUCKED up period of time.
Amen!
Thanks for the call too
They said they didn’t use the text messaging system because it hadn’t been tested. I have to question that; what’s the point of signing students up to something when you don’t know whether or not it works? I believe that somebody dropped the ball on this hugely, perhaps the person responsible for testing the system. We should find out who that is and ask them why UBC offered a safety system to students when they didn’t know it would work and were unwilling to use it.
raincoaster:
Yes, to quote Dr. Toope:
“We have recently purchased a mass communication system that will allow us the ability to communicate widely with our students, faculty and staff through either a text message or voicemail. Our next step is to test the system over the coming weeks to confirm its reliability.
Currently 38 per cent of our students have provided their cell phone numbers to participate in this system and we encourage all students to participate.”
Now, perhaps I don’t know how grownups do things, but if I have a program designed to send messages to people in an emergency and there came an emergency, I would send those messages. Who cares if the program wasn’t tested? What’s the worst that can happen? A typo in the message? Some people’s cell phone might miss it?
I see the police saying: “we don’t want to send a text message to the person who made the threat and let s/he know we are coming.” That seems to be the reason why the lockdown came before the warning emails. But hm, when can we use the cell phone system? To sent Christmas greetings a month late?
It seems to me that you all have a legitimate complaint. I’m going to be interested in what they come up with for an excuse. Here in the States they have been talking about systems like that but no one has tried one yet that I know of. Any objection to your parents getting the update also? What was the threat anyway- a bomb?
I recognize how this must be a hectic time for the administration and law enforcement.
I just hope every school can now finally implement an emergency response plan that provides enough vital information in a timely manner to ensure public safety and minimize the level of panic and distress.
The cell phone system can work even with just 40% of the student population. If you reach 40%, and request that they spread the message, the vast majority of campus will be reached within minutes, even those walking on the streets. If UBC had one set up, we could have become the leader in campus emergency response. Let’s hope we now realize how important this is, and get it done right.
I wasn’t on campus when the lockdown happened, but it seems that everybody is more obsessed about the SMS alert system than the threat itself. If the threat were real, we should have the right to know what is going on, right?
Maybe it’s a wannabe activist, or a disgruntled (or deranged) person? But why were we not given details of the threat itself? Afterall, Virginia Tech couldn’t cover up the shooting.
Is it a practice run for RCMP for the upcoming Olympics? Or had UBC the intent to test out the SMS system? I do not know, but something just didn’t seem right.
Bart.
Bart:
I would add some of those to the list of rumors I am keeping, if I haven’t covered them already.
But I don’t think any of your proposed possibility is true. I think the police got a serious threat, called for lockdown, UBC sent out emails but not cell phone msg because “the system is not tested”, they couldn’t find anything, lockdown called off, and now they are doing behind-the-scene investigation.
Police said it doesn’t sound like a prank.
http://www.rcmp-bcmedia.ca/pressrelease.php?vRelease=14624
RCMP’s press release on yesterday’s incident… not much new info besides the fact it wasn’t a bomb threat nor was it an excercise
I am thinking the alert system was purchased not for safety purposes, but rather as a whitewash. “What are you doing to keep our children safe?” “Why, we’ve got this great warning system, Missus Parent. It’ll save lives!”
I don’t think they expected it to ever be used. I’m kind of hoping the whole thing was a stunt by someone who knew that, and who wanted to show UBC up for what they are.
For all you speeders out there, give this a try..http://www.phantomplate.com/affiliatewiz/aw.aspx?A=4283Best of luck!