SJU Incident Proves Need For Cellphones In Schools

At about 2:30 p.m., last Wednesday, a young man was seen carrying a large rifle as he walked through the Jamaica Estates campus of St. John's University. An alert student, who is also a Police Department cadet (and who will doubtless begin his career with the NYPD with a commendation in his service jacket), followed the rifle-toter and kept him under observation and then helped a campus security officer to subdue him. Police were called and the campus searched for any accomplices the student, a troubled 22-year-old from East Elmhurst, might have had. (There were none.)

In the wake of the massacre of 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Technical University this past April, the St. John's administration implemented a text and voice-mail messaging system to alert students, faculty and staff in case of an emergency and instruct them how best to proceed. The system had its first real test last Wednesday, and passed with flying colors. Within minutes the campus was in full lockdown, students and faculty were safely sequestered in classrooms, libraries and the cafeteria and police were able to determine relatively quickly that the student had acted alone and that there was no further threat. No one was hurt, property was not, to our knowledge, damaged and the lockdown was rescinded after some three hours.

One of the major lessons to be had from the SJU incident is that communication in an emergency situation is vital. We hope that in spite of their busy schedules, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein were paying some attention to the events taking place at St. John's University last Wednesday. What could have been a tragedy of major proportions was averted in large part because university administrators were able to get the word out- fast. The major means of communication was the cellular telephone- a device that Bloomberg and Klein are still fighting to ban from New York City public schools even though the City Council passed legislation allowing cellphones and then overrode a mayoral veto. After the SJU incident so forcefully impressed itself on the consciousness of students, teachers and parents everywhere, what further convincing do Klein and Bloomberg need?

We have said in this space on previous occasions that we see no reason for a student to use a cellphone while in class. Like other telephones, cellphones ring when a call is received. Even so, cellphones, as anyone who has ever carried one into a theater, concert hall or house of worship knows well, can have their ring tones silenced and still receive messages. Such can surely be the case with cellphones in schools.

We cannot protect our children from all the perils of the age in which we live. It is our obligation, however, to try as best we can, using all the tools available to us. Cellphones are among the most effective of those weapons. We call on the mayor and the schools chancellor to take the lessons of the SJU incident to heart and stop opposing cellphones in schools.