The Office of Police and Public Safety at Morgan State University will hold a campus wide active shooter drill this academic year for training purposes in case the university experiences an active shooter.

Morgan’s faculty, students and staff can expect the campus wide active shooter drill before December 2018.

“This drill requires extensive planning with outside and inside personnel to successfully and safely pull off a full scale active shooter exercise,” said Adrian Wiggins, executive director of police and public safety.

Until the drill occurs, the university has set procedures that students, staff and faculty must follow once Morgan’s Police Department has confirmed an active shooter. Once the campus is alerted through the emergency alert system via text or email, the university will be placed on lock down.

The lock down procedure requires individuals to shelter in place, whether that means confining themselves inside a classroom with locked doors or evacuating the premises.

For individuals that are outdoors during an active shooter alert, an outdoor warning will be triggered signaling an emergency and steps to proceed to safety. The outdoor emergency warning signal located at the top of the university’s campus garage sounds like a siren is triggered simultaneously with the emergency alert text or email.

Along with sheltering in place, Morgan encourages students, faculty and staff to run, hide or fight as a survival technique, as a crisis response to an active shooter. Run. Hide. Fight. is a coordinated response developed by the FBI and the city of Houston.

“If you can run to get away from the situation that’s ideal, if you can’t get away from it then hide in a classroom and shut the door and barricade it so no one can get in. Then if you can’t run or hide then you fight, at this point your fighting for your life,” said Chief of Police, Lance Hatcher.

“Run, Hide, Fight came from the experts as a suggested course of action that is effective in saving lives and remaining safe,” said Wiggins.

While students, faculty and staff are following procedures to ensure their safety, Morgan’s police department will go into to defuse the active shooting crisis and any victims will receive first aid care after the active shooting has been neutralized.

“In mediating the threat our officers have yearly training in case of an active shooter, we also work diligently with the Baltimore City Police as well for active shootings,” said Hatcher. “Often were not going stop to render any care because we can’t stop to bandage or aid anyone because the person is still shooting people and our first obligation is to stop it.”

Although the campus wide active shooter drill will happen later this year, willing participants like student and academic groups or organizations can request ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) active shooter training from Morgan’s Police Department right now.