WEST JORDAN, Utah — Ava Beck was in her Spanish class Wednesday at Utah Valley University when two other students walked in and told everyone to get out.
“And I walked out,” Beck recalled, “and there (were) so many students just standing there in the parking lot and in front of the building because nobody knew what was going on.”
Conservative commentator and activist Charlie Kirk had been shot in the campus’ amphitheater. He died a short time later.
Beck, a junior at UVU, became one of thousands stuck in a bottleneck that followed the Kirk shooting – people there to see the speaker or just everyday UVU students, faculty or staff. She’s started a petition asking UVU make changes before the next emergency.
Beck’s petition asks UVU to create better procedures for lockdowns, including making announcements on public address systems. Wednesday’s announcements came by text message and email.
“The Wi-Fi was clogged,” Beck told FOX 13 News. “The lines were clogged. You couldn't send anything out. You couldn't get anything in.”
Beck provided FOX 13 News with the alerts she received. The first arrived by email at 12:44 — about 20 minutes after the shooting. It didn’t provide any instructions.
“A single shot was fired on campus toward a visiting speaker,” the alert read. “Police are investigating now, suspect in custody.”
While one person was arrested quickly after the shooting, he was not the gunman.
“And I was in panic,” Beck said of the minutes after the shooting. “Everybody was standing outside, and there was a shooter on the campus. We didn't know if he was detained or not detained.”
“It took me an hour to get out of my parking space,” Beck added.
“It was so congested that it was super hard for police personnel, emergency responders to even get in or out of the university.”
Years before Kirk shooting, concerns about security at Utah Valley University:
A UVU spokeswoman on Friday told FOX 13 News the university plans a review of preparations for the Kirk event and the response to the shooting.
Val Peterson, a UVU vice president and a member of the Utah House of Representatives, on Thursday told reporters the campus’s priority is faculty, staff and students.
As for the Kirk preparations, Peterson said, “We used our normal protocols in making sure that it went… the precautions for large events as well as for freedom of speech.”
Beck said those protocols need to change.
“I just feel kind of upset,” she said, “that the standard procedure is to email and text alerts instead of using the PA intercoms throughout the university that could have locked down a lot quicker.”