Sunday night was the first time UCA has used its emergency-alert system, bought after the Virginia Tech shooting rampage last year.

BY DEBRA HALE-SHELTON
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

CONWAY, Ark. — An e-mail notifying University of Central Arkansas students of the drive-by shootings that left two people dead and a third wounded did not go out until 10:20 p.m. Sunday, about an hour after police learned of the shootings.

University of Central Arkansas interim President Tom Courtway, right, speaks with UCA Campus Police Lt. Rhonda Swindle before a news conference in Conway, Ark., Oct. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

E-mail and phone alerts distributed at 9:36 p.m. went only to some key administrators, faculty and staff, UCA police spokesman Rhonda Swindle confirmed Thursday.

On why it took so long to notify students by e-mail, Swindle said, "That's just the first available time they had to put it out." She said the emails had to be typed to conform with the emergency at hand.

UCA interim President Tom Courtway said the e-mail notification to all UCA students was "never intended to be the primary emergency notification system." "It's a way of dispensing information to the general student body," he said. "The question is ... What's the best way to do that? ... Is it through text messaging? Is it through other means ?"

Courtway said the 9:36 p.m. alert and series of phone calls to residence-hall coordinators and others were instead part of that primary emergency response aimed at ensuring that everyone began the appropriate precautions.

Courtway is asking a special committee to review the university's response to the shootings and to make recommendations to him and the board of trustees by Nov. 22.

"I think the moral of the story is [that] what we had in place worked very well," he said. "Like any other campus in America, can things be improved? That's what we're going to find out."

Sunday night was the first time UCA has used its emergency-alert system, bought after the Virginia Tech shooting rampage last year, when 33 people were killed. UCA's system does not include text messaging, an addition Swindle has said the university wants if it can find the proper program.

Swindle said a resident assistant in Arkansas Hall, a dormitory immediately beside the crime scene, advised everyone to stay inside - at 9:24 p.m., according to a timeline UCA released Thursday.

For the first time, authorities also revealed that a UCA police officer rescued an infant who police believe may have been with one of the shooting victims, perhaps the man who survived.

The information appears on the chronology, which revised some of the times authorities previously have stated. At 9:30 p.m., the timeline says, "A UCA Police Officer shielded and evacuated from the crime scene an infant that had been with one of the shooting victims." Swindle said in an interview, however, that police are not certain if the baby, a girl about 9 months old, was actually with a victim when Ben Majors, a patrol officer, saw her "in the arms of an unknown male person" inside Arkansas Hall.

"The officer grabbed the baby and got her to her mother across the crime scene," Swindle said. "She was somewhere near State [Residential College]," a dormitory across the street.

Police suspect that one of the adults who had been outside when the drive-by shootings occurred may have carried the baby into the dormitory when he and others rushed inside, Swindle said.

Police believe the infant may be kin to Martrevis Norman of Blytheville but haven't reached him because they do not have a phone number for him and he is not a UCA student. Blytheville directory assistance has no listing for him.

Majors, the officer, also could not be reached for comment Thursday. He was off work, and Swindle said he needed some time before giving interviews.

"He's kind of shaken up right now. It's been kind of hard on him. The baby thing really bothered him," she said.

Authorities have identified the slain students as Ryan Henderson, 18, of Little Rock and Chavares Block, 19, of Dermott.

Charged with capital murder and other offenses are Mario Lavelie Toney, 20, of Conway; Kawin Jerod Brockman, 19, of Conway; Kelcey S. Perry, 19, of Conway; and Brandon Ricardo Wade, 20, of Bigelow. None of them is a UCA student.

According to the timeline of Sunday's events: A UCA officer reported hearing shots at 9:19 p.m. At 9:20 p.m., the first call reporting a shooting came into police communications. Three minutes later UCA officers stopped a vehicle with one of the four suspects inside. (Three other suspects would later surrender.) At 9:45 p.m., UCA police personnel began calling residencehall coordinators "and instructing them to secure their facilities and restrict access." At 10 p.m. housing staff members "were posted at each entryway in every residence hall to restrict access to residents of that facility only and advise those already inside to not exit." At 10:15 p.m., officers began securing all academic buildings and directing any pedestrians on campus to secure facilities.

At 10:17 p.m., an e-mail went to all UCA faculty and staff, followed by an e-mail at 10:20 p.m. to all students and at 10:26 p.m. to anyone on the Safe@UCA e-mail list for which students sign up on the university's Web site. At 10:45 p.m., UCA police personnel were sent to each dorm "to ensure that entryways were secured and that the Housing personnel were restricting access."

Some students left some dormitories during the night despite instructions otherwise. Swindle said police were limited on how fast they could do everything because so many phone calls came in after the shootings. "They were doing the old manual phone tree," she said. They also were calling in UCA police officers as well as other agencies. "The call out was just incredible."

"Hundreds and hundreds of calls" were coming into and out of the Police Department, she added. "They said the phone did not stop ringing for hours during the night." The timeline also reflects the rampant rumors that followed the shootings: among them, unfounded reports of shots fired at both Bear Village Apartments and University Park Apartments, another unfounded report that a suspect was possibly hiding in a room in Conway Hall, reports of "suspicious persons" who it turned out had nothing to do with the shootings.

Along the way UCA police also had to respond to a vehicle fire at Torreyson Apartments. Earlier this week, North Little Rock attorney Mike White, whose son Clint is a UCA freshman, had criticized the university for not notifying students of the shootings fast enough.

On Thursday, White said in an e-mail that he later talked with a high-ranking university official "who discussed the steps they are taking to evaluate the system and assure that the problems revealed Sunday night are addressed.

"I do feel confident that the school is going to act on this," White added. UCA spokesman Warwick Sabin said the university also has received positive feedback on how it handled the response. Sabin released an e-mail from Becky Engles, whose daughter is a junior nursing student at UCA.

"I want to say, I feel UCA did a wonderful job during the shooting incident," Engles wrote. "She was notified very quickly with the information."

Engles proceeded to make a security recommendation regarding entrances at UCA's library and Hyper Center. Courtway, meantime, said the committee will review, among other things, the situation at the library the night of the shooting. One student that night has said no one there announced the shootings until about 11 p.m. She said students were free to leave the building before that time, when they were placed under lockdown.

Courtway said Wednesday that he had been unaware of the security gap there but said Thursday that he later remembered someone mentioned a problem at the library to him. UCA shooting response time line

9:19:05 A UCA officer reported shots fired and was responding to the area. 9:20:00 UCA police received the first call reporting a shooting.

9:21:00 A caller advised a dispatcher that an officer was with a victim. 9:23:09 UCA police stop a suspect's vehicle.

9:24:34 An Arkansas Hall adviser told everyone to stay inside. 9:25:54 The officer with a suspect's vehicle advised dispatch that he had a suspect in custody.

9:29:39 MEMS on scene. 9:30 A UCA police officer shielded and evacuated from the crime scene an infant with one of the shooting victims. 9:30 Conway Fire Department on the scene. 9:36:05 The AlertXpress notification system was initiated by UCA police. 9:50 UCA Housing Area Coordinators contacted the residence coordinators and instructed them to secure all buildings - no one in or out. A few students reportedly failed to comply and left some facilities.

9:58:17 UCA police ordered that access to the campus via vehicle be restricted. All access gates were closed, and UCA and Conway police were posted at points of entry not gated. 10:17

E-mail sent to all UCA faculty and staff. 10:20 E-mail sent to all UCA students. 10:26 E-mail sent to the Safe@UCA e-mail list. 10:35 A crime alert and campus closure announcement was posted on the UCA Web site. 10:40 A crime alert message was placed on the Safe@UCA Info Line and updated periodically.

Copyright 2008 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.