By SHANNON O. WELLS
With the recent spate of protests on campus related to the war between Israel and Hamas, Pitt police have experienced no major safety concerns, but are collaborating with other local, as well as federal, law enforcement agencies as needed.
That’s among the information Ted Fritz, vice chancellor for public safety and emergency management, shared in his update to the Campus Utilization, Planning and Safety Committee at its Nov. 14 meeting.
Fritz said there have been approximately seven demonstrations on or around campus this year, related to the long-running Israel-Palestinian conflict that erupted again with an Oct. 7 attack on Israel by terrorist group Hamas that left approximately 1,200 dead. A subsequent Israeli counterattack has killed thousands more in Gaza.
“When we’re notified of a potential protest — sometimes we have days or sometimes it’s just hours — we reach out to the city of Pittsburgh police and share information with them about a particular incident,” he said. “We also share information with our federal partners to see whether there’s any specific potential for violence related to those. We do that up to the time of the protests, and throughout the protests.”
If needed, city police usually help Pitt with traffic needs, Fritz said, and Pitt police attempt to connect with protest organizers at the outset to learn their plans.
“So far, there have been no real issues with those protests,” Fritz said. “The demonstrators have been very cooperative, and we haven’t really seen a lot of issues related to that.”
Fritz said he anticipates more demonstrations throughout the semester, “and we’ll just continue to monitor that,” adding that Pitt also collaborates with Carnegie Mellon University police. “CMU has had some (protests) as well, and we are also in touch with them on sharing information about what might be happening over there and what might come our way as a result.
“So that’s been keeping our police quite busy throughout the semester,” he added.
Building safety upgrades
In other public safety news, Fritz discussed campus building safety upgrades. A total of 704 panic alarms have been installed so far, including 577 in classrooms, he said. Electronic locks have been installed in 325 classrooms.
“By next fall, all the classrooms should have both of those items,” he said, noting that creating infrastructure to accommodate electronic locks is particularly time consuming.
“Also, there’s been quite the demand for these throughout the country. So, from time to time we see shortages on these, and so we try and order ahead. (We) get as many as we can, when we can.”
At Pitt’s regional campuses, ID card-secure access has been installed on most of their buildings’ entry points, while progress is being made in residence halls. Fourteen residence halls at the Pitt–Johnstown campus now have card-activated access, along with about 10 academic buildings, Fritz said.
At Pitt-Bradford, three of 13 campus residence halls now have electronic locks, with 10 that require further wiring. “But we will continue with that,” Fritz said. On the Greensburg campus, nine residence halls have exterior electronic locks, and installation has been completed at four academic buildings.
“We’re trying to get them upgraded,” he said. “(Regional campuses) were a little bit further behind than the main campus on a lot of these issues. And so we’ve been paying them some attention this fall.”
In response to committee Co-Chair David Salcido’s question about the timeline of transforming ID card-activated door locks to activate via smartphone app, Fritz said the project is in the works and won’t require replacing existing locks.
“That’s going to happen. It’s a matter of, all those electronic locks that I spoke of that are being installed now, do you have that capability?” Fritz said, adding the phone-based system will be “similar to what you would see in a hotel room … an encrypted back and forth between the reader and an app on your phone.”
“Most of the residence halls now have that,” he added. “I don’t believe we’ve turned it on yet, but we are getting close.”
Fritz agreed with Salcido’s budgetary concerns for ongoing upgrades in the fast-moving electronic security industry.
“The industry moves at such speed,” Fritz said. “One of my first questions, always, when our personnel are talking about the latest gadget out there is, ‘Is that going to change in two years and we’re gonna have to pay for that?’ Some of it’s very convenient and more secure — which are certainly important things — especially the more secure part. But you do have to keep an eye on budgeting for that too.”
Life-saving skills
Salcido, an assistant professor of emergency medicine, provided an update of the committee’s discussion from earlier this year about the importance of educating the Pitt community in life-saving skills.
He described lifesaving skills as “an overarching, sort of umbrella term” that includes CPR, hemorrhage control — “Stop The Bleed,” as it’s called colloquially — the Heimlich maneuver for choking victims and the use of Narcan for opioid overdoses.
“The great and powerful thing about these skills is that they are … learnable, with relatively little training. But the distribution of those skills across a campus like ours, or across the city, such as we’re embedded in here, can be really impactful,” he said, because it can shorten time between an emergency condition like cardiac arrest, choking or injury “and in beginning treatment, that can stop the clock that might progress to death or loss of neurologic function.”
Salcido questioned the extent to which people know how to use devices like automated external defibrillators or Stop the Bleed kits across campus.
“How do we distribute those skills in addition to the physical items that are there on the wall, and what’s the best way to do it?” he asked. “And is there actually a desire among the University community to learn those skills?”
Salcido said he and Fritz discussed the idea of having training kits that teach how to do CPR chest compressions and hemorrhage control for bleeding available through Pitt libraries. He said he was told it’s not a library mission to carry items unrelated to coursework, “which I will interpret as ‘We don’t have the time and the resources or the space.’ ”
Salcido said he’d like to “brainstorm” with Fritz and the committee about whether offering lifesaving skills training around campus is worthwhile as opposed to relying on existing emergency response infrastructure, he said, including an “excellent police department” and proximity to Pittsburgh EMS.
Fritz shared a work-in-progress primer chart showing where CPR and AED training, both in person and virtual, is available, noting he planned to post it on Pitt’s Department Environmental Health and Safety website.
“Obviously, we can add to (the chart), keep it updated, etc.,” he said, “But we do get frequent calls about where this type of training might be available, so we thought we’d start with this.”
Salcido mentioned exploring ways to help cover costs imposed by the Red Cross and other agencies for those with financial challenges.
“That can be a deterrent for people who want to learn CPR, AED and stuff like that,” he said. “This is definitely a step, putting the information out there. But there’s no presumption here that it would cover the costs, right?”
Fritz said although it doesn’t, he said it’s a “cost that the department could fit into their budget, if they desire to.”
Lamonica Wiggins, committee co-chair, asked if the approach Pitt police took with active campus-shooter trainings could be “repeatable with another skill.”
“Certainly that model would, would work, I think,” Fritz said. However, “when we do the active killer training, we’re largely paying all these officers overtime (to do that), so it can be very costly, especially with the number of classes that we’ve had this year. I think the model would be OK, (but) there’s going to be a cost to that.”
Fritz said he could request funding for additional officers dedicated to training. “I don’t have a problem doing that … There’s the training itself (as well as) the payment to people to do the training. If departments want to do it, I think they should, and I think they would be reimbursed … by Pitt.
“I’m no accounting financial expert, but I would think that you could be able to fit that in if it’s something that your department wanted to do.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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