In the wake of a campus shooting that left three people dead at San Jose State University on Tuesday night, some students are questioning how long it took for them to receive warnings from a campus-notification system.
In what is being investigated as a murder-suicide, two people were found shot to death inside a car in a campus parking garage, police officials said. A third person, the suspected shooter, died at a local hospital, they said. Authorities have not released a possible motive or said if those involved were students, except to say that the three had a "university affiliation."
The campus police broadcast an alert via a campuswide speakerphone system within 20 minutes of the shooting, campus officials said. More than an hour later, officials sent out an e-mail saying there was "no active threat" from the shooting. Roughly four hours after the shooting, they sent out a text message noting that the campus parking garage had been reopened.
Some students criticized the university's response. Robb Silverstein, a public-relations student who lives on the campus not far from the garage, said students should have been notified sooner. "A lot of people are upset about that," Mr. Silverstein said. "It's a big issue here on campus."
Many colleges, including San Jose State, have installed new emergency-notification systems since the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, which has been criticized and threatened with fines for its emergency response.
In a statement, college officials said that police officers who arrived on the scene immediately determined that there was no threat to the campus community. Given the absence of a threat, college officials "waited for accurate info" before sending out an alert, according to a message on the college's Twitter feed.
