In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings yesterday, the obvious question being asked on college campuses across the country is, what if it happened here?
One of the principle steps the Penn Police took years ago - even before the Columbine attacks in 1998 - to deal with the potential of this type of attack was creating a SWAT team, officially called the Emergency Response Team.
"We wanted to act pro-actively," said Maureen Rush, the vice president of the Penn Division of Public Safety.
The ERT consists of 15 members and is trained to handle active and barricaded shooter situations, such as those that occurred at Virginia Tech and Columbine. Whereas most police units are only trained to form a perimeter on the outside of a building with a shooter holding hostages inside, the ERT has the training to enter the building and address the situation with force.
"Columbine certainly put the law-enforcement community on its heels with what you do with an active shooter," Penn Police Capt. Gerald Leddy said last week. "What I think we've done very well is take that lesson."
Just this past semester, Leddy, who helps coordinate the team and is trained in crisis-hostage negotiations, said the ERT underwent additional training on active-shooter situations.
He added that self-reliance and immediacy of response are two of the main reasons the University maintains their own SWAT unit, though few other universities do.
"We don't want to leave it to the city police to clean up any mess here," he said.
Sgt. Bill Farley, who oversees ERT training, added last week that the nature of working on a university campus also provides unique challenges.
"A lot of tactical teams might be very focused on working residential neighborhoods, barricaded subjects working in row-home areas," Farley said. "That isn't something that we focus on. We focus more on working in the university environment, working in larger buildings as opposed to in small structures."
In addition to hostage and shooter situations, the ERT is trained to handle bomb search and detection, hazardous materials, dignitary protection and warrant service. They also receive additional weapons training, including with sniper rifles.
They lack the expertise of units that train full-time exclusively for any one of those functions, but Farley said the idea is be ready for a range of different scenarios.
The ERT members participate in at least two additional days of training a month, adding up to 192 additional hours on the year. They all volunteer for the post while also serving regular police shifts and do not receive additional pay.
Farley said members are motivated to join largely out of pride.
"You do it because you like to think it's an elite team. It's not something everyone can do," he said.
ERT members must meet heightened physical and shooting standards. Typically, spaces only open up every two or three years, and about 15 officers will apply for the positions.
Most of the training is handled in-house, but, despite the practical differences between working on a university and in the rest of the city, the ERT often trains with the Philadelphia Police SWAT team.
Though there has never been a serious hostage situation or an actual bomb on campus, Penn Police Chief Mark Dorsey said that "several times a month," situations arise that call for the ERT.
Most commonly, these have to do with dignitary protection or serving a warrant. Essentially, in serving a warrant, ERT members will enter a house or building and clear it, in order to make sure that it is safe for detectives to come in and investigate.
Dorsey said that dealing with bomb and chemical threats is also a common use.
During the anthrax scare in the wake of 9/11, Leddy said false cases were called in "almost every day."
Dorsey added that "there's an awful lot of bomb threats that come through here. They run in patterns."
Last year, he said, there were "three or four." One, for instance, involved a suspicious, ticking package sent in the mail to one of the Engineering buildings. Though it ended up being a harmless piece of plumbing equipment, Dorsey said the scenario illustrates the value of having a police unit on campus capable of dealing with a bomb situation.
"I think we have prided ourselves on being the next step. We're not going to wait for a tragedy to happen here and then react to it and try to plan for if it happens again," Farley said.
"We don't want to wait until it happens somewhere in the area that gets too close to comfort."
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