As a student at the University of San Francisco, I am deeply disturbed by the way the school handled threats of gun violence made by another student on Sunday. For over four hours, the University was aware of threats of gun violence against the school, but did not notify the campus.

To be clear, these are the facts, as confirmed by USF officials (sources available here):

At 3:36pm a student notified public safety of threatening messages posted on social media.

At an unspecified time after the initial report, USF Public Safety determined that the posts did not constitute “a threat to the general campus community.”

At 7:30pm, the student who made the threats was arrested after walking around campus, yelling racial slurs and threats, attempting to force his way into buildings.

At 7:52pm, USF notified the campus through USF Alerts that “there is no active shooter on campus and our community is not in danger.”

In response, I sent USF Public Safety and Administration officials the following questions, requesting a written response. I was offered a phone call yesterday afternoon, which I declined, and again requested a written response. I will update this post if/when I receive a response.

At what time did Public Safety and SFPD determine that the posts did not constitute a “threat to the general campus community”?

On what basis did Public Safety and SFPD determine that the posts did not constitute a “threat to the general campus community”?

Why did it take USF over four hours after being notified of the threatening posts to issue a campus wide alert?

If Public Safety and SFPD determined that the posts did not constitute a “threat to the general campus community” before the student was apprehended, why was the campus not notified that the community was not in danger until after the arrest?

If Public Safety and SFPD determined that the posts did not constitute a “threat to the general campus community” until after the student was apprehended, why was the campus not notified that the community might be in danger before the arrest?

Additional questions/concerns I’ve seen raised by other students include:

If Public Safety had determined that this student did not pose a threat, why did Public Safety and SFPD approach him with guns drawn when they made the arrest?

Because USF officials chose to delay notification until after the arrest, they created a situation in which the campus was overwhelmed by law enforcement, yet students and staff had no idea why.

For more on this incident and the aftermath, I recommend reviewing the Tweets of the SF Foghorn, USF’s student news outlet. In a staff editorial posted this morning, the Foghorn team did not mince words, blasting USF’s handling of the incident as “reckless.” The editorial also calls for an independent audit of the incident: