NIU seeks to be model for campus security

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DEKALB –  Donald Grady said he hopes never to have to deal with another day like Feb. 14, 2008.

But at the same time, Grady, chief of police at Northern Illinois University, intends to make it much more difficult for anyone to repeat the horror that happened that day.

“I don’t think anyone can ever be fully prepared for an event like that,” Grady said. “That’s why we call it a crisis.

“But I know that we are better prepared today than we were yesterday, and I hope we are better prepared tomorrow than we are today.”

On Feb. 14, 2008, Steven Kazmierczak, a former NIU student, walked into Room 101 of Cole Hall on the university’s DeKalb campus and opened fire, killing five people before taking his own life. Another 21 people were injured, either because they were shot or as they fled the room.

When asked when the official report of what happened that day would be made available to the public, Grady said the investigation into the shooting is ongoing and therefore the report cannot be released yet.

The Daily Chronicle has requested the report from NIU, as well as several other local and state law enforcement and rescue agencies that assisted the campus’s police department that day. The NIU request was denied; the Chronicle is appealing that decision. Requests to other agencies are in various stages of approval, denial or appeal.

Grady said police are “still looking for information, trying to verify information and track down leads” in the case. Further, he said his department has yet to receive an important report from the FBI on the incident.

And since Kazmierczak is known to be the shooter and is dead, the case is no longer considered “the top priority” for his department, as other duties are more pressing at this time, he said.

In the wake of the shootings, however, Grady said the university has moved to increase and tighten security on the campus. The department, for instance, has gone from 46 sworn officers to 62 in the past year, he said.

A number of campus police officers have also undergone specialized training to equip them to deal with the threat posed by “an active shooter” on campus, Grady said. The officers, Grady said, will be part of what he calls the CAMPUS program, an acronym for the Community Assault Mitigation Program for University Settings.

The program is essentially modeled after the federal Air Marshal program, which places undercover law enforcement agents on airline flights, specifically to reduce the threat posed by potential hijackers.

University officers in the CAMPUS program will be placed undercover among students on campus. Should a threat then present itself, the officers would be in place to neutralize the threat.

“They are constantly among the students,” Grady said. “They are in classrooms, in the common areas, everywhere students gather. If a shooter were to become active on campus, he will have no idea who is in the room, or whether one of our officers is in there.”

Grady said the officers will be trained to react to the situation, position themselves correctly and “take the shot,” if necessary. He declined to disclose how many officers had undergone the training or to say whether the CAMPUS program had started, saying it would compromise its effectiveness.

Grady noted that the shooting is not the sole reason for security upgrades on campus, since many of the initiatives were already either underway or being discussed before Feb. 14. Officers had undergone training as to how to respond to gunmen on campus and as emergency medical technicians before the shooting, he said.

The initiatives accomplished in the last 12 months have made NIU a better place, he said.

“This campus was already a very safe place,” Grady said. “But we had an unfortunate incident a year ago.”

And the events of Feb. 14, 2008, have sharpened the skills of his officers and of others involved in campus safety, he added.

“We were well-trained before 2/14,” Grady said. “But especially since 2/14, we are as well-trained as any agency to respond to an incident like that on our campus.”