Locks advised for classroom doors

BLACKSBURG, Va. — As Derek O’Dell pressed his 145-pound frame against the heavy wooden door, he thanked God it was too cold that April morning to wear flip-flops.

There were no locks on the classroom door, so he wedged his left sneaker under it to keep out the student who had just executed four of his classmates and his German teacher, then left the room as calmly as he entered. Other students lay moaning, some unconscious, most bleeding on the floor, including a friend who sat in front of Mr. O’Dell who was struck in the head by a bullet but survived.

“I sat there watching him. I wanted to lean over and help, but I couldn’t leave the door,” Mr. O’Dell said, recalling the morning of April 16, when Seung-hui Cho stormed into four classrooms in Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall, killing 30 students and faculty hours after slaying two students in a dormitory. As police closed in, Cho turned the gun on himself.

Safety analysts say that while school officials across the country re-evaluate campus safety in the aftermath of the tragedy, many are overlooking the simple solution of putting locks on the inside of classroom doors.

“Often it’s the simple stuff that will prevent a tragedy like this, and often it’s the simpler things that will make the bigger difference,” said Michael Dorn, a campus safety consultant and author of 19 books on the topic.

Mr. O’Dell was shot in the right arm, but he and some classmates barricaded the door to Room 207 with their bodies.

“The heaviest thing in the room was bolted down and the desks were pretty flimsy,” he said, describing the situation as Cho returned twice to kill more. When he couldn’t enter, Cho stepped back each time and unloaded a round into the door, one shot piercing Mr. O’Dell’s black fleece jacket but missing his body.

“It’s kind of crazy to think that you have 1½ or 2 inches of wood between you and a person with a gun who just killed half your classmates,” said Mr. O’Dell, who has recovered.

Colorado, the site of several school shootings including the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, has led the push to equip classrooms with doors that could be locked from the inside, said Vincent Wincelowicz, vice president of the Foundation for the Prevention of School Violence at Johnson & Wales University in Denver.

Most classrooms, including those at Virginia Tech, lock by key from the outside, a design that safety analysts say puts teachers and students at risk.

Mr. Dorn said school officials, especially at the college level, have been reluctant to go to the expense of installing internal locks on classroom doors.

At a university such as Virginia Tech, where about 170 general-use classrooms are spread over 2,600 acres, it could get expensive to retrofit each door, security specialists said. Specialized classrooms, such as laboratories, and faculty offices already have internal locks, school officials said.

“A lock on a classroom door may cost $50 to $150, maybe $200 with installation, and it would certainly add a layer of protection that a security camera that’s being remotely monitored may not afford,” said Robert Siciliano, chief executive officer of realtysecurity.com and author of “The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert.”

A Virginia Tech committee looking into security changes is considering placing internal locks on all classroom doors, school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

He said the university also must consider problems the locks could create. In October, a 53-year-old drifter took several students hostage in a classroom and killed one girl at Colorado’s Platte Canyon High School.

The internal locks may have saved lives during a 2005 school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, said Everett Arnold, principal of the school of about 280 students.

Armed with a gun and bulletproof vest, Jeff Weise, 16, barged into the school and killed five schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard before killing himself. He earlier killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion.

Weise tried to get into several classrooms but failed because the doors were locked from the inside.

Still, some question whether changes are necessary.

“This is a fluke of an incident, and school security shouldn’t have to be changed because of it,” said Clay Violand, whose French teacher and 11 classmates were killed that morning at Virginia Tech.