A Mountain State University official said the school’s emergency alert messaging system was not activated after a student-athlete was shot on university property shortly after midnight Thursday because the campus was closed and the lone dormitory was placed on lockdown.
“No faculty and staff were on campus at that hour and we locked down and secured the dorm,” MSU executive vice president Roslyn Artis said.
She added that officials determined there was “no reason to alarm the community” at such an hour and that if they “thought for a minute that anyone else would be in any danger” they would not have hesitated to activate the alert system.
Word of the shooting still had not spread campus-wide by Thursday afternoon, and those who had heard what happened said they only knew because they had learned of it from other students.
Isiah King, a 19-year-old freshman who resides in Hogan Hall, said he had not heard from anyone regarding the shooting.
“I signed up for the emergency alert system, but haven’t received any alerts or texts last night or today,” he said.
Senior Brandy Sharp, who also lives in the dorm, said she too had signed up for the system, but the only notice she received of the shooting came from friends.
“I just found out there had definitely been a shooting around 11:30 a.m. (Thursday),” she said, adding she received text messages from friends informing her of the incident.
Ava Williams, a diagnostic medical sonography major from the Bahamas, said she lives close to campus and said she was under the impression she would receive a text alert “if anything happens.”
“I haven’t heard anything out of the ordinary today,” she said.
