Earlier this week the Statesman posted a report written by the University of Texas Police Department that assessed the department’s response to last year’s shooting. While the internal review was mostly positive (as it probably should be), it did highlight some oversights made as UTPD tried to contain the chaos on campus that day. Many of them were relatively minor – like not providing enough water to hydrate tired officers – but a few of the mistakes made in communicating information both internally and to the public were a bit unsettling.


UTPD’s communication failures included:

Communication systems malfunction: Though not addressed in detail in this most recent report, there were some news reports at the time indicating that the emergency text messaging service failed to send messages to some registered recipients (myself included).

Additionally, the operators working the siren were unable to immediately access the system because they were unaware the password was case sensitive. This small oversight prevented a quick activation of the siren and could have cost lives had Colton Tooley been more interested in harming others.

Poorly worded and confusing communication with UT community: Even when the systems did operate smoothly, UTPD did not make the best use of them. For example, the message sounded from the loudspeakers ended with the phrase “all clear”. Though the message in its entirety instructed everyone to stay indoors, some latched on to that last phrase and assumed everything was back to normal. Commonly used phrases among officers such as “shelter-in-place” also confused some of the UT community.

Poor communication with other agencies: When the order was given to officers to “clear” a few of the surrounding buildings, some assisting officers from other agencies interpreted that as an order to evacuate the entire building. However, this was intended as an instruction to secure the building from any other armed individuals. Had there been other shooters roaming the campus, the officers would have effectively been providing them with some highly vulnerable targets.

Also, there was confusion as to what radio channel would be used for communication. Though this was fixed quickly, there were moments during the situation where the command post was unaware of a switch in radio channels. The use of an encrypted frequency also prevented some communications personnel from having access to the most recent information.

Other non-police emergency responders were unclear what their responsibilities were during the situation and whether they should seek shelter or go to the Emergency Operations Center.


To their credit, UTPD does a commendable job in the report of identifying what they could have done differently that day. Though the situation was tragic, Tooley may have been the best thing to happen to UTPD since the department was first created in 1968 in response to the infamous Whitman shooting. The department was able to see how their emergency response systems worked at full-speed and, hopefully, work out the kinks should another similar event take place. Some of the problems identified were fairly serious, but UTPD should be applauded for its sober reflection on its performance and its commitment to improvement.

But the upside isn’t just confined to UTPD internal policies. Thousands of students, staff and faculty members took the small step of connecting with UTPD through social media or its emergency text messaging services. Facebook “likes”, for example, went from 469 before the incident to over 10,000. Students and faculty are now also much more aware of the Behavior Concerns Advice Line and other mental health resources than ever before.

At the same time, UTPD continues to demonstrate that it hasn’t fully perfected its communication efforts. This report is not posted anywhere on the UTPD website (it was, instead, released by the Statesman). There was no press release either from the University or UTPD about the report listed on either website.

Also, a couple of other UTPD reports that were listed on the site are several years out of date, including its annual report. Effective, timely communication with the public is necessary even when there isn’t an active shooter on campus.

All things considered, our police department probably executed a perfectly competent response to a wildly chaotic situation. However, after reading the report, I couldn’t help but be thankful that Colton Tooley showed up on our campus and not someone who could have exploited UTPD’s missteps in a much more destructive way.