On Friday, Sept. 5, I was in my Thomas House apartment, excited for a 4 p.m. call with one of my best friends, whom I haven’t seen since she graduated from SMU in May. As I sat in an armchair, relaxing after a long week, I heard a booming voice announce that there was an active shooter at 3:50 p.m.
My heart pounded as I received the text message from the SMU Aware alert. Seeing the words ‘active shooter’ stood me right up. I dashed into my bedroom, closed the door and sat in the corner next to my dresser.
In a group chat with my mom and brother, I texted, ‘active shooter alert on campus.’ It was a text I never imagined I would have to send.
In our group chat with the SMU Daily Campus staff, I notified the team of the alert, and reporters and editors started replying with confirmation that they had seen it, as well as questions about whether everyone was okay and crying emojis. Our faculty advisor told everyone to ‘Stay where you are.’
I received a call from our social media editor, who was working on a post to publish on our Instagram, when a text came through at 3:54 p.m. sharing that the indoor notification and exterior door locking test was over. Emails about the planned test were sent on Sept. 3 and about three hours before it occurred.
A sigh of relief came over me. It was a test.
Yet over the next hour, I found myself unable to sit still from the adrenaline in my system. I paced through my kitchen and bedroom while on the phone with my friend, in an attempt to calm down. Everything resumed as normal, as we received more clarification around 4:20 p.m. from SMU Aware that it was simply a test.
SMU News shared the following statement to The Daily Campus on Saturday, Sept. 6:
“At 3:50 p.m. yesterday, SMU conducted a planned test of our emergency notification systems. During the test, the active shooter message was inadvertently initiated. There was never a danger to campus.
We understand the unexpected message may have caused concern. Regular testing is an important step in making sure that, in the unlikely event of a real emergency, our community can be reached quickly and effectively.”
This was not just an emergency notification test, but a test that revealed something deeper: if an active shooter were on our campus, are we truly prepared?
Christopher Cook, A senior and lead ambassador in SMU’s Undergraduate Admissions Office, was giving a tour at the time.
Cook felt a buzz from his phone while he was walking his group past Cox. He typically does not check his phone during tours, so he was unaware of the alert until a man told him to get his group inside Cox as quickly as possible.
“I had not seen the email earlier that day about the test going on. So my immediate thought was ‘Okay, this is something very serious,’” Cook said. “I didn’t have time to explain to the family, so I told them to run and follow me.”
The doors were locked, but a girl sitting near an entrance opened the door to let them inside. Cook explained to his group that SMU was experiencing a test a few moments later, but a few in the group said they were able to pick up what was happening.
“I finished the tour after the best that I could, but it took a minute or two to calm down myself, and then for the families to process what happened,” Cook said.
Cook said he is unsure of what to do if he is caught outside of a building during a potential alert.
“I don’t know where a good place to hide would be, given that there was only about a minute or two from when I got the notification and when I tried to go into Cox,” Cook said. “I think there would be students who would just be caught outside.”
Cook hopes that after this situation, SMU will give training and more resources on what to do.
“I feel like that would make me a lot more comfortable,” Cook said. “I think this kind of exposes that at least I, as a senior here at SMU, I don’t know what to do in an active shooter situation if I’m not already inside a building.”
I am an ambassador just like Cook, and could not imagine where I would go if I were outside with a family if an active shooter alert were initiated. Locked doors on campus ensure safety in this situation, but if members of the SMU community are stuck outside, what is the protocol?
Arianna Villarreal, a senior majoring in economics and political science, was in the CCPA lounge in Umphrey Lee at the time the alert went out.
“It took me 60 seconds to remember the alert email that we got the day before,” Villarreal said. “But within those 60 seconds, I was, I would say, mortified, I thought it was actually happening.”
Villarreal was in the lounge with a freshman who wasn’t reacting while she was looking for safe locations to hide. She soon remembered it was a test.
Many students either did not see the email, like me, or saw it and may have forgotten that a test was occurring.
Villarreal considered those who were not in university buildings, as they had not received the notification system email ahead of time.
“For the Catholic Center, they don’t have any of those speakers,” Villarreal said. “So all they saw was there’s a shooter on campus, they were on lockdown for like five or ten minutes.”
Despite the shock and worry in the moment, Villarreal feels the alert served as a reminder to students to be prepared.
“If any good came out of this, it’s realizing that we need to be more prepared, both mentally and emotionally, but also what we should do wherever we are on campus,” Villarreal said.
School shooting tragedies continue to shock the nation. On Sept. 10, Charlie Kirk was killed during an event at Utah Valley University. The same afternoon, a student opened fire at Evergreen High School in Colorado and turned the gun on himself.
These events and this false alert serve as a wake-up call that these tragedies are not distant headlines—the threat of an active shooter can happen anywhere. We owe it to ourselves and the SMU community to stay alert, check in with friends and classmates and be prepared to act if an event occurs. Together, we can continue to maintain a safe and supportive community on SMU’s campus.
For more safety information, please visit smu.edu/aware
