CARTERVILLE, Ill. — John A. Logan College unexpectedly received incoming text message tips during an active shooter drill that helped the school’s situational awareness to make better decisions and act during a crisis situation.
The college had implemented a service from Omnilert called uTip that lets the community submit anonymous crime tips via cell phone text messages. The uTip service was originally not part of the school’s planned exercise, but will now be included in future emergency preparedness planning.
“We saw uTip as another item we could offer free to students that would help them in their day-to-day lives while here on campus,” said Terry Crain, Dean for Student Services at John A. Logan College. “We wanted students to feel they are in a safe environment, and if something ever did happen, then they have a very simple way to contact us and send us anonymous information that we could then act on. We’ve had the service for a while and fortunately it has not been used very often. It’s like an insurance policy.”
