UCCS installing locks on interior classroom doors
The University of Colorado-Colorado Springs will use locks to keep active shooters from entering classrooms to seek hiding, helpless victims.
“Research shows that an active shooter has never tried to breach a locked door,” said UCCS police Chief Marc Pino. “And in some mass shootings, the shooters entered unlocked classrooms and killed victims who were trying to hide.”
During spring break, UCCS workers began installing more than 100 locks on interior classroom doors in seven buildings. The work is scheduled for completion by the start of the fall semester.
Doors are locked by turning a knob instead of using a key.
“It makes people more aware, but it also makes them take responsibility for knowing what’s going on,” Pino said. “What we tell people is to trust their gut, and if something is going on, we tell them to lock the door. We’d rather come check it out and have it be nothing, than it could have prevented something.”
Pino said campus officers can respond to any campus emergency within a minute, but seconds matter in an active shooter situation.
“Every second buys us time to respond,” he said.
Several UCCS students said they like having the ability the lock classroom doors, but that the real solution is keeping guns out of the hands of potential criminals.
Alex Reed, a UCCS graduate student, was at Florida State University in November 2014 when a former student there shot three students in the campus library.
“I don’t think college students worry about active shooters much because it has happened more often in high schools,” he said.
Lily Cosgrave, a UCCS faculty member, said she supports any changes to increase safety on campus.
“Staff and faculty have locks on their doors and in their offices,” she said. “I think the new locks are a good idea, and will help us learn more about the situation. I didn’t know that classroom doors tend to be unlocked.”
Pino said UCCS will investigate whether locks are needed in meeting rooms and other areas that are presently unlocked.
