Department of Public Safety Chief Bobby Maldanado and Chief Law Enforcement Officer Tony Callisto held a press conference for student media on Thursday to discuss the Orange Alert system and how it was used during Wednesday’s crisis situation.

The suspects in a homicide Wednesday night on Hope Avenue, which is about two miles from the Syracuse University campus, are still at-large. While Maldanado and Callisto could not update reporters on the current investigation, they did discuss how the overall situation was handled by campus law enforcement and the university.

Callisto said DPS in conjunction with the Syracuse Police Department were confident enough that the suspects of the off-campus shooting had fled the area near SU so they decided to call off the alert at 10:36 p.m.

The original Orange Alert message was sent out mainly due to the proximity of the incident to the SU campus. In addition, the fact that the suspects shot at police vehicles as they fled the scene of the crime on Hope Avenue contributed to the decision to send out the alert.

The decision was made by both Maldanado and Callisto.

However, Callisto added that in the event of a crisis situation — like this one — a patrol sergeant could have authorized the alert. And if the patrol sergeant was actively engaged in trying to stop the incident, any one of DPS or SPD’s patrol police officers could have engaged the Orange Alert system.

“Normally, we want to have a conversation about it so we can have a couple minutes to decide, but if the folks on the ground make the decision that the community is going to be safer if we put out an Orange Alert then they’re not required to get our permission to do that. They can do it right away,” Callisto said.

The Orange Alert system automatically sends an email to every SU student, faculty and staff member, Maldonado said. Members of the SU community can also elect to receive Orange Alerts through text messages or phone calls on a cellphone or landline.

In addition to the Orange Alert messages that were sent out, the sirens on North and South Campuses were set off.

Each Orange Alert is limited to 140-characters; therefore, each message must be “brief and succinct,” Maldonado said.

Callisto added that after the university purchased the Orange Alert system in 2007, they developed a series of messages relative to a variety of instances in order to provide people with specific information. When actually sending out an alert, dispatchers can then fill in specific information, locations and times if necessary.

DPS dispatchers are drilled on sending out Orange Alert messages every week, Callisto said. The dispatchers are also trained to do a full-scale Orange Alert test twice each semester.

“It’s a pretty robust system that our people are pretty confident in using,” Callisto said.

The last time an Orange Alert was issued for a violent incident was on Nov. 24, 2008, which was also the first time the Orange Alert system was tested at SU.

When this alert was issued, there was a shooting incident that had occurred on Madison Street and based on eyewitnesses, the suspects were headed toward the SU campus, Callisto said. However, after about 45 minutes, campus law enforcement had enough clear information that the suspect had fled the area to call off the alert.

The other two times since 2008 that the Orange Alert system has been used were both due to weather conditions.

“We have to address each individual situation individually,” Maldanado said. “… I think it’s up to us to make an evaluation and determination as to whether or not an Orange Alert is necessary in this point in time to secure and make folks feel safe in our community.”

Published on October 15, 2015 at 8:44 pm

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann