After a day filled with high emotion, low information and plenty of emergency alerts, some are questioning the official response to a manhunt for a fugitive on University of Virginia Grounds.
One of those early emergency alerts Tuesday morning alerted UVa community members to a "suspect" on or near Grounds and instructed students, staff and faculty to shelter in place.
"It brought back November 2022," Bellamy Brown, a former member of the city’s Police Civilian Oversight Board, told The Daily Progress, "when the UVa students got killed."
On the night of Nov. 13, 2022, three UVa students were shot and killed inside a chartered bus returning from a field trip to Washington, D.C. Brown said UVa’s initial warnings Tuesday led him to think there had been another mass shooting.
"There was chaos and confusion, and nobody really knew what to think," said Brown.
As it turned out, police were combing the area in and around UVa for a man who had fled a traffic stop. And although authorities later identified that man as a fugitive known for illegally possessing firearms and wanted on charges of attacking an inmate inside a local jail, it’s not clear when that identification was made. Moreover, it is not clear whether the search for him justified canceling all classes at UVa, whose Central Grounds are more than a mile from the reported traffic stop.
While officers searched for the fugitive, loudspeakers scattered around UVa Grounds intoned, "Seek shelter immediately indoors and away from windows," in a broadcast reminiscent of 1950s civil defense sirens.
Brown called it "overkill."
"There are some who felt trepidation, anguish and stress; and it isn’t necessarily visible," said Brown. "There has to be a better protocol, another way to catch this guy."
UVa wasn’t alone in restricting movements.
About half an hour after the university’s first alerts went out, Charlottesville City Schools informed parents that gym and recess at three of its schools — Buford Middle School as well as Johnson and Trailblazer elementary schools — would be moved indoors. One hour later, the school division announced it had expanded "indoor instruction" to all schools.
Both of those messages to parents in the city stressed that police saw no risk to the schools and that the orders were based on "an abundance of caution." But such messages didn’t stop one Charlottesville High School student from coming home Tuesday with questions about a "drive-by shooting," according to the student’s father, who spoke with The Daily Progress on the condition of anonymity to avoid embarrassing his son.
"The lack of info was appalling," the father told The Daily Progress.
But his son was far from the only person making assumptions based on the information at hand. On social media platform Nextdoor, a woman advised the community "2 prisoners escaped from uva," and on online forum Reddit, users who could identify the UVa loudspeakers were met with a variety of wrong guesses, including a fire alarm at the CODE Building and construction near the Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center.
Charlottesville City Schools spokeswoman Beth Cheuk acknowledged the paucity of information, but said there’s a reason for that.
"We always want to minimize rumors," she said, "but we don’t want to be a purveyor of community news."
Cheuk said she hadn’t heard about the rumors but seemed interested that they were being spread.
"We’re always reviewing our practices," she said.
When did authorities realize they were seeking Nyeem Hill, a 19-year-old jailed in 2023 and subsequently convicted for handling a military-grade rifle on a city playground after previous juvenile felony convictions?
Official communications show that the suspect fled the traffic stop at 8:13 a.m., that a Virginia State Police helicopter went airborne in Lynchburg at 8:33 a.m. and that UVa’s first alert advising people to "avoid the area" of Alderman Road due to "fire/police activity" occurred at 9:03 a.m.
It was at 9:17 a.m. that the more dire UVa alert was issued: "Police are looking for a suspect in the area. Shelter in place."
It was not until an alert pushed out around 11:20 a.m. that UVa revealed that no shots had been fired and that there were no injuries.
UVa spokeswoman Bethanie Glover offered no apology for Tuesday’s communications and declined to say whether university officials understood why terms such as "suspect" and "shelter in place" could conjure visions of bloodshed.
"The alerts," she told The Daily Progress in an email, "are intended to give immediate information about the ongoing incident and actions that the community can take to stay safe, rather than overwhelming readers with information not pertaining to immediate safety precautions."
Glover said that the decision to cancel morning classes and ultimately cancel all classes Tuesday was based on available information, including the proximity of the incident to Grounds and the perceived threat.
"In this case the traffic stop occurred off, but near, Grounds," she wrote, "and the suspect was seen heading in the direction of Grounds when fleeing."
Additionally, Glover contended that the suspect’s criminal history and suspected gang affiliation, along with his outstanding warrants, merited these actions.
However, according to officers and the dispatcher heard on the local police scanner Tuesday, at least some police initially thought they were seeking a man named Travis Michael Washington.
Washington is suspected of beating and grasping the neck of a domestic partner, according to an arrest warrant issued in December. About half an hour into the pursuit, a dispatcher advised responding units: "Washington is showing in custody at ACRJ," referring to the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
"Yeah, we’re thinking it’s probably not him," an officer replied.
When UVa learned the identification of Hill was not something that Glover would divulge, but Virginia State Police spokesman Matthew Demlein said that his troopers realized it promptly.
"At no time did Virginia State Police consider Travis Michael Washington a suspect," Demlein told The Daily Progress in an email.
Demlein said that evidence, including the registration of Hill’s vehicle, quickly pointed law enforcement toward Hill as the suspect.
And while social media was abuzz Tuesday with complaints about frightened students, missed appointments and a rumor mill buzzing as loudly as the overhead helicopter, there were some who found the responses comforting.
"Someone brought up the the point that he could have carjacked someone or done a home invasion," said Brown. "But if we look at the crime reports, we see that those things have already taken place within the past year, and there was never any lockdown or shelter-in-place."
Since 1990, the Clery Act, named for a murdered student, requires American universities to issue emergency alerts after certain crimes. However, it’s not evident that what happened Tuesday would have triggered a Clery-based alert, and Glover declined to say whether the Clery Act was involved. Glover also declined to say whether the 2022 murders affected the university’s response, nor would she make a top official such as UVa President Jim Ryan or Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis available for an interview.
"It was decided that the safest course of action while the suspect was believed to be so near to Grounds was to shelter in place and pause classes," said Glover. "All decisions were made with the safety of our community in mind, and classes were only canceled when it was determined that the University could not continue to operate under normal conditions."
Brown is still troubled. Not just because such emergency responses could unnecessarily traumatize the community, but because they could numb people to future threats or actual violence.
Hill remains on the run.
On Thursday, two days after the search for Hill shut down UVa, a stabbing was reported just off Grounds, prompting a new round of emergency alerts.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com