Cesar Dominguez-Garcia, the man suspected of firing a bullet into a sixth-floor ceiling of UNM Hospital pediatric unit during a family altercation, turned himself in Jan. 8, ending a five-day search, according to APD officials.
The Jan. 4 incident forced north and main campuses into lockdown. Roads leading into the area were blocked off with dozens of Albuquerque Police Department vehicles, and officers patrolled the hospital grounds with assault rifles.
The hectic scene perplexed students and staff on campus because 12 percent of recipients got updates through UNM’s Lobo Alerts system nearly half an hour after their peers, according to UNM Emergency Manager Byron Piatt.
Piatt said more than 88 percent of text messages, or roughly 28,000, were sent within 44 seconds. The additional 12 percent reached students, faculty and staff within half an hour. Others who are not signed up for the text alerts, but rather receive their messages via e-mail, got the first alert after the situation was cleared.
Piatt blamed technology issues for the delay and said individual cell phone carriers might be to blame. However, he still recommends that students and staff use alert text messages.
“Text messaging is a whole lot faster than e-mail systems,” he said. “You can send a lot more text messages a lot faster than you can e-mails.”
Student Noah Armstrong said he is concerned about the University’s ability to alert those on campus during an emergency.
“The system needs to be fixed,” Armstrong said. “If 12 percent didn’t receive their text message in time, maybe UNM can find a correlation between the people who didn’t get their message and their cell phone provider.”
Student Derric Romero said he was in class when the notification was sent out.
“Everyone’s phones started to go off and the teacher was like, ‘What is so deathly important that you guys are texting?’” he said. “So we just told her there is a shooter on campus, and she changed her tone real quickly.”
Every response entity at UNM must undergo an After Action Review to determine if any areas need to be improved for future incidents, Piatt said.
This was the first time LoboAlerts was used to notify subscribers about a lockdown. During the fall semester finals week, a message was sent out to the inform students, faculty and staff about a weather delay.
Information Technology Services bought LoboAlerts in 2008. It replaced the old notification system because it was not reaching enough of the University population. Everyone with a banner ID is automatically subscribed to LoboAlerts. The cost of the service was not immediately available last week.
Piatt said it is important for students, faculty and staff to enter a cell phone number with their banner ID because information can be sent much faster that way and to avoid any delays during future incidents.
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“We are going to try to work on an education campaign that putting a cell phone number is the right way to go,” he said.
