LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Monday night's shooting at Michigan State University marked the 67th mass shooting so far this year according to the Gun Violence Archive. Today, the University of Kentucky is reflecting on its safety practices.
Spokesperson, Jay Blanton, says, "The question becomes, I think for all of us, is 'what do you do to try to mitigate against it? What do you do to try to prevent it as best you can?'"
I spoke with a couple of students who told me they feel like this is a safe campus.
One junior, Haley Shaver, says, "For the most part around campus I feel very safe, especially with all of the emergency poles around."
Another sophomore, Anna Benton, says, "I think that the walkways being lit at night makes me feel a little safer."
With around 33,000 students and over 12,000 faculty and staff, the university says that safety is its top priority.
"It's a responsibility our police officers have, it's a responsibility we have to ensure that we're protecting ourselves but also that we're protecting others on our campus, that we are, in effect, our own brothers and sisters' keeper,” says Blanton.
Over the last decade, around $15 million has been invested into keeping this campus safe.
"A lot of the protocols that I think you saw at Michigan State, all of those are in place at the University of Kentucky,” says Blanton.
Over the years, more lighting, emergency poles, cameras, and security systems with automated locks, have been added around campus. The campus also has 54 officers. The university also offers "Active Aggressor Training" which focuses on how to respond to active incidents.
Blanton explains that the training is, "Similar to what you saw, probably some of the verbiage may be used at Michigan State around the idea of avoid, deny, defend, or run, hide and fight. I mean, it's a whole trained strategy around those terms and those actions about what to do."
Each time an incident like this happens on a college campus, the conversation around safety continues.
"The safety of the campus community is our first priority, it's apparent and embedded in everything that we do. I mean, investments that we've made over the last several years. I think underscore that and undergird that,” says Blanton.
University officials say they'll keep working to provide more resources to help keep this campus safe.
The University of Kentucky says that its "Active Aggressor Training” will continue with a session in the spring semester. More safety resources are available on the campus police website at https://police.uky.edu/.
