VTech Admins may have been legally obligated to warn students?

In trying to hazard a guess at what topics might come into play over and over again in the coverage of the shooting, I think it's worthwhile to point out a line in the Haas e-mail that leads us to some interesting angles.

We want the Grand Valley community to know that we have had emergency response plans in place for many years. We test, review and update those plans regularly - we did so most recently after the murder of a student at another Michigan university.

A quick Google search to refresh my memory lead me to this story from Detroit. Late last month, a story broke raising questions that school officials at Eastern Michigan University had reason to suspect foul play over the rape and death of a student.... oooonly they might not have told anyone about it.

Despite the implications the death was viewed as suspicious early on by police, university officials did not back down from their earlier statement of no foul play until Taylor was arrested Feb. 23.

University spokesman Ward Mullens said he could not discuss when the university learned it was a possible murder or how the university handled the case.

"I'm not able to say anything relative to the case," he said.

The university's handling of the case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education, and the college has hired Detroit-based law firm Butzel Long P.C. to do an internal review.

Now this is a big deal according to the Clery Act, which states that universities MUST disclose information about crime on or near campus.

Obviously this puts school administrators in the hot seat. On one hand you don't want to scare the bejesus out of your paying custom- er- students. But on the other hand you can't (legally) act like a creepy shadow government and cover up a murder.

Well, connect the dots on your own and see how yesterday's shooting and this murder compare to each other. I heard on NPR today that the VTech president was welcomed with a standing ovation at a memorial service today, how much longer before palm sunday ends and everyone's calling for his execution once this little tidbit of info gets linked to what is already being called a dispicable response time?

Well, what is the news saying?

Students were not warned of any danger until more than two hours after Monday's first attack - at a dormitory where two people were killed.

I guess the defense in that case could be that it's really hard to alert thousands of students all at once. But in the words of a friend of mine "if you started runing around the campus shrieking at the top of your lungs, people would eventually get the idea."

So when you're reading your concerned e-mails from the university admins, keep this story in mind.