CSUN Police Services teamed up with the cinema and television arts (CTVA) department in order to create an Active Shooter Awareness video to help students and faculty prepare for active shooter situations.
Its objective is for CSUN students to be able to understand what is happening on and around campus, know what to do and react quickly to an active shooter on campus. There are four key phrases to take away from it: “Get out, Hideout, Help out, and Fight.”
Chief of Police, Anne Glavin said the worst thing is not knowing what to do in that type of situation.
“The key thing to do is to make sure that people don’t melt down to the point that they freeze and they cry and they become immobile, which people can do in a panic situation,” Glavin said.
The video shows different situations students, staff and faculty will be put in if there is an active shooter on campus and how to survive. The video can be viewed on the Department of Police Services’ web page.
“A good example that I’ve been giving is the UCLA shooting a little while ago,” Glavin said. “Well, it wasn’t a mass murder, but when that started, no one knew whether it was or wasn’t. I remembered when the media interviewed students, they were saying nobody taught us what to do, no one told us what to do.”
Film production option head Nate Thomas, who supervised the making of the video, said a lot of students underestimate the ability of the campus police.
“Sometimes people tend to think our police are just security guards,” Thomas said. “I think that letting the campus community know that the police are trained, they will feel like they are in good hands.”
If there is an active shooter situation, the video states the police will use a campus emergency broadcast to send alerts to students. The alert tells you where the situation is happening on campus and all current information known.
The video also shows that being prepared is the best survival technique. Knowing the exits and being aware are important factors in getting through the incident.
CSUN film production student Amanda Derzy, who was the second assistant director of the video, said working on the video made her more aware of her surroundings.
“I’m sitting in the library and there was somebody that was walking around strangely and I think he was just lost but I was watching him the whole time and I don’t think I would have done that in the past,” Derzy said.
Glavin said the video can be applied no matter where people are. She explains that after watching the video, people can use the key phrases if they are at a theater or mall, which are places where that situation also tends to occur.
“I said earlier that knowledge is power, it’s empowerment,” Glavin said. “So if you know that you have a chance to survive, if you know what to do and you understand what each of those key phrases means, then I think you are going to feel like I got a fighting chance in this situation.”
She also added that she met with heads and deans of various departments on campus and suggested they show the video in classrooms.
The CSUN Police Services and CTVA department’s goals with creating the video are to make sure students are conscious of active shooters and keep them well informed on how to handle the situation.
“This is my home, this is my community,” Thomas said. “And I want to do whatever I can to make this safe.”
