news-record.com

We don’t know how well-prepared Elizabeth City State University is to handle a real-life campus shooting. But we’re pretty darned sure it’s not very good at staging a make-believe one.

With a campus security officer posing as a gunman and brandishing a red plastic pistol, the school staged a mock shooting last week. Problem was, not everyone knew. The gunman barged into a foreign policy class and held the students and their professor at gunpoint.

Jingbin Wang, the professor, said the man first asked to talk to him. "Then he pointed the gun at me. I was prepared to die at that moment."

The gunman also threatened to kill the student with the lowest grade-point average. Not knowing what to make of the incident, several students say they considered leaping from a window.

Small wonder. The drill came only eight days after a gunman walked into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire, killing five people before killing himself.

At Elizabeth City State, campus police eventually stormed the classroom and captured the role-playing "gunman." Thankfully, no one was hurt or worse. Believing he was the real deal, a student or faculty member not only could have harmed themselves but the faux gunman as well.

In light of the Northern Illinois incident and last year’s Virginia Tech tragedy, there’s certainly value to practicing for the unthinkable. UNCG held a similar drill on Jan. 7 but notified the media well in advance and posted signs along Spring Garden, Market and Aycock streets on the day of the drill. The students and faculty involved in the exercise were briefed ahead of time.

The Elizabeth City State administration merely sent out e-mails and text messages a week earlier and again as the drill was beginning. "Unfortunately, we learned lessons from frightened students that result when live scenarios are carried out," ECSU Chancellor Willie J. Gilchrist said in a prepared statement.

Ya think?