Better communication needed from Bluffton Police during school lockdowns | Opinion
May River High School was on full lockdown Wednesday afternoon because of a “rumor of a rumor.”
A student was believed to have brought a gun on campus.
Bluffton Police responded quickly.
Teachers locked classroom doors.
Everyone hid.
Some kids — the ones who were in hallways and locker rooms at the time — ran into the woods or to nearby neighborhoods, just as they had been taught to do.
Within 18 minutes of the lockdown, both the Beaufort County School District and May River High had updated their Facebook pages to alert the community to a “possible threat” at the school.
Ten minutes later, the public information officer for Bluffton Police updated the department’s Facebook page to say the same.
Then social media filled in the blanks.
Predictably, parents began to seek out information and post what they were hearing from their kids, who were texting from their hiding places.
Local Facebook users began putting together unverified pieces of a pictureless puzzle.
And word began to circulate that there was an active shooter at the school.
Some parents drove to campus.
Others called their kids but got no answer.
Think about that for one second.
Think of what a sickening feeling that must have been.
There’s an active shooter at my child’s school?
No answer.
No information.
It would take the police about 45 minutes to update its Facebook page and clearly say what it had known since its initial alerts: There was no active shooter.
Worse, before updating the police department’s official Facebook page, the public information officer — whose job it is to communicate with the community on behalf of the department — at first tried to dispel the myth of the active shooter by commenting on a citizen’s post on a local Facebook page. The only problem: She used her personal Facebook page to do so and never identified herself as a member of the police department.
There is no good excuse for that.
Situations change rapidly, of course. How can the public information officer for the police department be expected to post that there’s no active shooter when officers are in the middle of investigating the potential for one?
And besides, are public information officers really supposed to offer updates when there’s really nothing to report yet?
The answers to those are: “Very easily” and “yes.”
Before the advent of social media and school shooters, an update within 45 minutes would have been great.
Now, too much damage can be done in that time.
Before the advent of social media and school shooters, police waited until they had all the information before updating the public.
Now, police departments across the country are recognizing the importance of frequent communication during a potential crisis and are using social media to their advantage.
Under the old model of communication, there might not have seemed to be anything for a police department to say — and some officers regarded the publication of any information as possibly compromising an investigation.
Under the new model, law enforcement agencies are adapting to social media and using this direct connection with the community to improve their own policing.
In August 2018, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s public information officer set the bar for communication and did a stellar job updating the community during and after a mass shooting in Florida.
That agency’s posts were frequent, specific and instructive — with information the public needed and wanted to know, right down to what someone who was hiding should do when they see a police officer.
The effort most likely paid off in fewer injuries and much less inconvenience, confusion and chaos.
If that department were handling the posts for the situation at May River High on Wednesday, they might have looked like this:
“2:45 p.m. UPDATE: Police are continuing to investigate a potential threat. There have been no reports of an active shooter.”
“2:55 p.m. UPDATE: Police continue to investigate a potential threat. Again, there have been no reports of an active shooter. We will continue to update you on this page with official information.”
“3 p.m. UPDATE: The investigation at May River is continuing. Students are safe and under lockdown in their classrooms. There have been no reports of an active shooter. We will continue to update you on this page. Please do not come to the school.”
Locally, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s public information officer learned the delayed-communication lesson the hard way during Hurricane Matthew when confusion ensued during re-entry, and again a few months later when rumors spread rapidly in the hour after an officer-involved shooting at the Tanger Outlets in Bluffton.
Since then, the agency has become reliably and directly communicative with the public through its regular Nixle alerts and social media posts.
It’s important that Bluffton Police follow suit.
Beaufort County has a very active Facebook community. Bluffton especially does.
Residents time and again have turned to each other and to official Facebook pages to find out what is going on in one area or the other.
It is important for government and law enforcement agencies that have dedicated positions for communicating with the public to understand the social media landscape so they can get ahead of bad information.
Because one thing is not changing: People are hungry for information — especially parents who think their children are in danger.
This was evident on Wednesday, when they repeatedly asked the district or the school for updates
And, after that initial 45-minute delay, the district and school did.
The report of a gun at the school was based on what Bluffton Police Capt. Joe Babkiewicz later called “a rumor of a rumor.”
When the lockdown was lifted an hour and a half after it began, relieved parents thanked the school, the police and each other.
School district spokesman Jim Foster was happy to report that the teachers and students at May River responded to the lockdown exactly the way they were supposed to, which is great news.
More good news? Change might be coming on the communication front.
Babkiewicz and Foster said the police and district plan to go over what went right and what went wrong during the incident.
And both said updating the public more frequently would be a part of that review.
This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 11:27 AM.
