HOUSTON – The president of Lone Star College's North Harris campus said Thursday that the timeline of events related to the Jan. 22 shooting is still under review.
While he stopped short of saying mistakes were made, Dr. Steve Head did admit the college is using the shooting incident to fine tune the system it uses to alert students and faculty in an emergency.
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Reports of shots fired on the campus came in at 12:20 p.m. College police respond immediately and Harris County sheriff's deputies arrived just a few minutes later.
Though it's not clear what time authorities figured out this was not an active-shooter scene, the first on-campus order to shelter in place wasn't issued until 12:35 p.m., 15 minutes later.
Head admitted there is room for improvement.
"You can put everything you want on paper. When it happens, though, it's just a series of things," Head said.
Another 10 minutes would go by before college administrators sent out the first campus-wide text message. That happened at 12:45 p.m.
Seven minutes later, at 12:52 p.m., more than 30 minutes after the initial shots fired call came in, a lockdown alert was blasted across Lone Star's website.
While Head said he believes the college was prepared, he said the warning system isn't as solid as he'd like it to be.
"You'd like to think you thought of everything, but that is just not the case. In our forums, the students have been telling me if they are not around an instructor then they didn't know and do we communicate with them," Head said.
At 1:02 p.m., an evacuation order was sent to students and faculty via text message stating a shooter was on campus. Four minutes later, at 1:06 p.m., that same information was sent out via email.
Head also said the school needs to do a better job of finding a place for students with disabilities to gather during an emergency.
Head said it took authorities about an hour and a half to figure out the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Trey Foster, 22, has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the shooting. Three people were wounded. Two of them have been treated and released. Jody Neal, 25, remained hospitalized Thursday.
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