Around 7:50P.M. on October 20th, yelling, banging, and a strange odor came from the first floor bathrooms in the Fulton Library. The staff deducted that someone was having a mental episode and contacted the campus police. “I noticed two people standing watching from the top of the stairs as the yelling continued.” A student reported.
“The situation escalated to Orem police arriving to aid in detaining the individual, which they were able to do around 8:30. They kept him detained on the premises until EMTs arrived and carried him out on a stretcher at about 8:45.” The staff member said, “As of now, police told us he was likely not a student here and was suffering from a drug overdose.”
According to an Instagram comment, “one of the librarians came around and told students what was going on […] not in detail, just enough so we knew the necessary level of concern and didn’t think it was something worse than it was. Though I’m not sure the burden of that should be put on employees, I appreciated her, and in this particular situation she made me feel better about it than any official notice would have. But maybe that’s just because I have a hard time relying on notices the school sends out about any serious situations because of how inconsistent they seem to be.”
“Officers responded and located a male subject who appeared to be experiencing narcotic-induced psychosis. The male was alone in the restroom when officers arrived and did not present an immediate threat to the campus community. With the assistance of Orem Police Department officers, the male was taken into custody.” According to the UVU Alert.
UVU students received an alert text the following day from the University for the incident the night prior. The first text was sent at 8:00 A.M., it seemed to be a template with no information: “ UVU Alert: [time] Campus Advisory. There is a [problem] in [location].” 10 minutes later, it was followed by the real text alert explaining the situation.
The delay between the texts caused confusion. Students thought that the event was regarding 7:46 A.M. that morning instead of the night of the 20th, some students thought that classes were going to be canceled.
The Vice President of UVU informed us that the template alert was an employee training issue. He said, “We appreciate the patience and understanding [….] as we continue to learn our balance of sharing information and not over alarming the campus community.”
This year, the university’s response to emergency has been under discretion with the Charlie Kirk shooting and the alleged shooting threats from UVU students earlier this semester. There continues to be work that needs to be done in correctly alerting the students and keeping the campus safe.
