CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For 12 hours, UVA students sheltered in place with little more than a tweet from UVA Emergency Management that told students to "run, hide, and fight."
This message is a centerpiece of the FBI's active shooter training. "Run, Hide, Fight" is based on three action steps that are designed to be easy to remember and act upon in the case of an emergency.
"If you have some distance between you and the shooter, then you should run," said Kenneth Miller, a former police chief for Petersburg. "Get away as soon as you can, you can fight another day."
However, running is not always an option. If a person is too close to the shooter and there is no possible way to escape, then a person should do their best to hide.
"If you are in a building there is no place to run, so the 'hide,' that is your only and best option," said Miller
Fighting should be used only as a last resort. If this happens, Miller said to use everything in your surroundings and to fight like your life depends on it.
"When we say fight, we mean 'fight with everything you have,'" said Miller. "You have to muster enough strength, enough courage, enough determination to protect yourself against this evil-doer."
Miller said this type of increased awareness on how to escape an active shooter situation could save your life and should be practiced as often as possible.
Several universities in the Hampton Roads area use this same protocol of "Run, Hide, Fight." Here are some of the statements universities released:
"Old Dominion University uses the FBI’s Run. Hide. Fight. active shooter protocol, and provides regular training to the campus community. More information can be found here." a representative of Old Dominion University said in a statement.
Virginia Wesleyan University gave the following statement to 13News Now:
"Safety is absolutely a top priority at VWU. We have a staff of full-time security officers who patrol campus by foot, bicycle and vehicle 24/7, and we also have an officer stationed day and night at the gatehouse at our main campus entrance. We utilize the LiveSafe app as our means of emergency notification and also communicate with our community members through VWU email, our website, and social media pages. We also have a campus siren that deploys in cases of emergency.
"We have a strong relationship with the Virginia Beach Police Department (including Chief Neudigate and Captain Wilkerson with the third precinct) as well as the Norfolk branch of the FBI. We have an active threat presentation planned with the Norfolk FBI branch early next semester, and our campus community is strongly encouraged to attend.
"We just sent a message to our campus community today to remind students, faculty, and staff of all safety protocols and communication methods in the event of an emergency on campus. The 'Run-Hide-Fight' response protocol was shared as part of this message."