VT student, father react to homicide

When Melissa Iverston, a Virginia Tech junior from Chesapeake, received an emergency alert email from the university Wednesday, it threw her for a loop.

"It said we had a confirmed murder in the Graduate Life Center and the suspect is in custody and they were asking us to stay inside," Iverston said.

Wednesday's homicide of a female student was an isolated incident. Still though, the alert immediately brought Melissa back to April 16, 2007. She was on campus when another student murdered 32 students and faculty.

Melissa's father and mother left Chesapeake and rushed to Blacksburg that day.

"Oh yeah, it was a punch in the gut again," said Jeff Iverston after getting a call from his daughter after Wednesday's homicide.

Melissa and her parents say the response from the college was much better Wednesday with the new emergency alert system that notifies students and faculty within minutes of a threat. It was implemented soon after the 2007 massacre.

"When you don't know what's going on, you are more afraid. It was nice to know what was going on. I was still upset Wednesday and it brought up bad memories, but I was happy to have the information from the alert system so quickly."

Other colleges around Hampton Roads implemented similar alert systems soon after the Tech massacre.

"It works great," said Norfolk State University Chief of Police, Anthony Walker. "Even my counterparts at other universities and the Norfolk Police have all shared stories about how fortunate we feel to have this tool."

Chief Walker said he has now used NSU's emergency alert system several times, including last year during a threat in the neighborhood just outside of campus.

"During the holidays a year ago we had a hostage situation near the campus and we alerted students to stay where they were until the incident was rendered safe and so it's a tremendous help to us."

Chief Walker said having the system in place is a comfort to him.

"I have the responsibility to protect over 10,000 people on campus and this system has the capability of reaching thousands of people in a matter of seconds."

The system at NSU, like most campus systems, not only sends students and faculty emails to their web addresses, it also contacts them on their cell phones and home phones.

Melissa's father says he feels much better about his daughter being on campus now that Virginia Tech has the alert system. And says he does not blame the university at all for not installing the alert system sooner, before the 2007 massacre.

"I don't blame Tech's administration at all because if we could plan for everything, there would not have been a September 11, and there was."