'Suspicious activity,' 'concerning behavior' to be monitored at OSU

The Daily O'Collegian ^ | October 8, 2009 | Sean Harkin

[SoonerStorm09]

The Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., forever changed after the events of April 16, 2007.

A student, Seung-Hui Cho, gunned down 27 students and five faculty members before killing himself.

Vice President of Student Affairs Lee Bird said shortly after the Virginia Tech incident, OSU expanded its Threat Assessment Team and renamed it the Behavioral Consultation Team.

The team is a specially trained group of professional staff members from several university departments with mental health, student development, law enforcement, academic, administrative and legal expertise, according to its Web site.

The team investigates and evaluates threats and other concerning behavior and implements strategies for managing individuals that might pose a threat of harm, according to the BCT Web site.

“The shift came with Virginia Tech,” Bird said. “If people had talked about some of the behaviors or saw what was going on, perhaps someone could have intervened earlier, better and more strongly to prevent the incident.”

Bird said consulting the BCT is not simply a way to rat out a roommate who has been drinking beer in a dorm room. It’s when a student, faculty or staff member drastically changes their behavior or starts “acting out.”

[ClearCase_guy]

There's a lot of talk about this sort of thing in New England right now, based on the recent murder in NH.

The Left seems to want to profile people, and push "counseling" or "intervention" on people who seem to be potential risks. I'll tell you what -- go to any city, and round up all the young black males. What? That would be bad? Huh. Maybe having the authorities trying to stop people from causing trouble before they cause trouble is actually somewhat problematic.

Here's an idea: get rid of gun control: allow people to defend themselves. And if someone commits a serious crime, give them a serious punishment.

[OldMissileer]

When I was in college I spent what little free time I had reloading and then shooting at a outdoor public range.

Since I was older than my college peers (active duty military first) I had some money and a nice collection of firearms.

I guess I would be one of the first people to get ordered into their indoctrination sessions if I attended college today.

[CPOSharky]

First order of business is to make sure that only lawbreakers can bring guns to school.

[Buckeye McFrog]

on an urban campus with 60,000 students sitting smack-dab in the middle of the largest city in Ohio....well, good luck with that one! Next they’ll be claiming they can manage the health care of 300 million people. Oh, wait....

[Saab-driving Yuppie]

on an urban campus with 60,000 students sitting smack-dab in the middle of the largest city in Ohio....well, good luck with that one! Next they’ll be claiming they can manage the health care of 300 million people. Oh, wait....

While your larger point is valid, be aware we are talking about Oklahoma State University, not The Ohio State University.

[Seruzawa]

Oh great. A bunch of college professors are going to predict who is or isn’t potentially violent. This is going to work out well. /sarc

[LearsFool]

the Behavioral Consultation Team

A team of busybody head-shrinkers. Their amoralistic philosophy has created this problem, and now they step forward to save us. It's job security for these vultures.

The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments warn us against tyrants who invade along this route. What I suspect the framers didn't anticipate, though, is that we'd let our communities be poisoned to such a degree that we would invite a tyrant to save us from ourselves.