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Auburn University (web|news) plans to alert students more promptly of possible security threats after complaints over the delay in sending out warnings that a student had been shot and her car set afire on campus, school officials said Wednesday.
An attorney for the man charged with capital murder in the student's killing also questioned the circumstances of a statement that authorities say he gave, without a lawyer present, admitting to kidnapping, robbing and forcing the student to disrobe before shooting her.
As sorority members at Auburn sought a safety seminar Wednesday from a security expert, Auburn officials said guidelines were being revised on when and how to alert more than 31,000 students and others at the university.
"We're going to utilize what happened to help us shape future policies," said Chance Corbett, the school's assistant director for emergency management.
"We're going to look at the things that were done because of what we heard from parents and students. We're by no means locked to current policies in any way and will be re-evaluating," he said.
Lauren Burk, 18, a freshman from Marietta, Ga., was found suffering from a gunshot wound on a roadway about five miles from campus shortly after 9 p.m. on the night of March 4 and her car was found about 20 minutes later burning in a campus parking lot. She died that night.
Some parents and students responding to Auburn's request for feedback questioned why it was not until noon the next day that an e-mail was sent advising of the developments and not until four hours later that the school's new AU ALERT system was utilized.
"Obviously, the authorities knew that a lethally armed person was at large and this person was evidently on campus sometime near 9:27 p.m. Yet ... no students were alerted to be watchful, or more obviously, to stay indoors and 'lock your doors,"' Dawn Barrs, an acquaintance of the Burk family, wrote in a guest column published in the Montgomery Advertiser Wednesday.
Auburn President Jay Gogue sent a letter to students, parents, staff and faculty Friday saying it had become clear "that we should notify our community even when we don't have all the facts, rather than wait to get the facts."
"Procedures are meant to be reviewed, and we will, effective immediately, send an AU ALERT as soon as we are notified of a serious situation, even when we do not have complete information and even when authorities relay there is no imminent threat," he wrote.
Courtney Lockhart, 23, has been charged with capital murder in Burk's case.
According to a detective's affidavit read at his initial court hearing Monday, Lockhart told police he forced Burk into her car and robbed her while on campus, then drove her around and made her take off her clothes. He said he shot her with a handgun before driving her car back to the campus and setting it on fire, according to the affidavit.
Lockhart's attorney, Joel Collins of Phenix City, said Wednesday he hadn't had a chance to speak with his client at length or read the statement he made to police.
"First of all the state as always presents the case as he's guilty, which kind of makes it difficult to obtain a fair trial for my client," he said. "He's presumed to be innocent regardless of what people say."
He said he was waiting to learn more about the circumstances of the statement Lockhart made to police since it was given without a lawyer present.
"I'm hoping that they video taped it and audio taped it," he said. "That way I can see what they told him to get him to say anything."
Police have said Lockhart waived his right to have an attorney present when he was questioned.
Auburn sororities arranged a safety seminar Wednesday by retired Lt. Col. Michael Moore, a campus security expert whose daughter attends Auburn. More than 2,500 students were expected to attend.
Michelle Kanavos, a board member of the Auburn University Parents' Association, applauded the school's quick response when confronted with the need to change its alert system policy.
She said there are "a lot of people who'd say 'Let's meet and have conferences for six months' to see what needs to be changed or 'Let's bring in a consultant to do this,"' said Kanavos, who lives in Marlborough, Mass. "But Auburn said we recognize we need to make changes and we welcome feedback. That's the positive thing."
More than 31,400 people receive AU ALERTS mandatorily through school e-mail addresses and 17,240 have voluntarily registered to receive the notices through other means like voice mails and cell phone text messages.
Corbett said about 2,000 of those signed up after Burk was killed and the school is considering making registering for the voice mail and text message alerts mandatory.
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