Two Dead In O-hi-o

[Dickie Billericay]

Got to get down to it, janitors are gunning us down.  Should have been done long ago.....

Ooops, sorry, a flashback to my misspent youth.  I'm sure Neil Young will be writing a song about this, the latest murderous rampage on an RA gold standard campus.  

Another shooting in a "gun free zone"?   Maybe they should pass more laws and put up more signs, so the mental cases know it's really, really bad to go around shooting people.  That should solve the problem.


Nathaniel Brown
RA Gold Standard employee

Suspect kills self in Ohio State shooting, police say

March 9, 2010 2:10 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- A man apparently angry over a poor performance evaluation entered a [regionally accredited] Ohio State University maintenance building early Tuesday and opened fire, killing a manager before turning the gun on himself, police said.

Larry Wallington, 48, a building services manager at the OSU Maintenance Building, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 3:30 a.m. ET shooting, Ohio State University Police Chief Paul Denton said. Wallington was a 10-year university employee, he said.

Authorities found suspect Nathaniel Brown, 51, a custodial worker, suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot at the scene, Denton said. He was transported to the Ohio State University Medical Center, where he was dead on arrival.

Police believe Brown -- a probational employee since October who had received a poor performance review -- entered the building dressed in dark clothing carrying two handguns and began firing into an office suite, Denton said. Officials would not say when Brown received the review, who gave it to him or provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

A third person, Henry Butler, 60, an operations shift leader, also was shot. He was in stable condition at the OSU Medical Center, Denton said.

Police earlier Tuesday had said that two people were wounded and one killed and that the alleged shooter was in custody.

About a half-dozen employees were at the building when the shooting occurred, and some witnessed it, authorities said.

Ohio State's Web site said the building where the shooting occurred was secured, and some traffic restrictions remained in place Tuesday morning. "The university continues normal operations," the school said. "Classes will be held and normal work schedules are in effect."

E-mail alerts were sent to students warning them about the shooting, the university said.

The shooting comes after the university issued e-mail alerts last week about two alleged sexual assaults and an attempted assault on campus, Ohio State's student newspaper reported.

The student newspaper, The Lantern, published an article Sunday saying that students were questioning the effectiveness of such e-mail alerts after three serious crimes last week.

Students are allowed to choose if they want to receive the e-mail alerts. On the campus of 50,000-plus students, a little more than 2,600 people receive the e-mails, police told the student paper.

A university committee was scheduled to meet this week to determine if changes needed to be made to the notification system, The Lantern reported.

As Jack the Kipper would say, in an unrelated story...
Ohio State is No. 1 - in president's pay

By Ben Rooney, staff reporterJanuary 18, 2010: 1:57 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ohio State University is No. 1 again, but not in football or basketball. For the second year in a row, the school's president was the highest paid public university executive in the United States, according to a study published Monday.

The Chronicle of Higher Education said E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State's president, took home $1.6 million last year, up from $1.3 million in 2008.

Mark Emmert, president of the University of Washington, was the second highest paid executive in the survey, with total compensation of more than $900,000 last year. Patrick Harker, president of the University of Delaware, came in third with more than $810,000 in total income.

...Meanwhile, the survey found that compensation for public university executives overall increased at a much smaller rate in 2009 than in recent years. The median total compensation for chief executives last year was $436,111, up 2.3% from 2008. After adjusting for inflation, however, compensation rose 1.1%.

That compares with total compensation rising between 7.6% and 18.9% each year since 2005.

But as the economy soured and many public universities were forced to hike tuition and eliminate courses, the issue of executive compensation became a sore spot for many schools, said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of The Chronicle.

"Steadily rising pay packages of public university chiefs riled parents, students and politicians, especially as tuition increases also had been hefty from year to year," Selingo said in a statement.

...The Chronicle also surveyed compensation at 64 community colleges nationwide and identified Eduardo Padrón, president of Miami Dade College, as the highest paid.

Padrón's pay package totaled nearly $550,000 last year. He was followed by Michael McCall, president of the Kentucky Community College and Technical College System, at roughly $532,000.

So the president of Goose's alma mater (AA, July 28, 2001) is the highest paid JuCo prez in the US?  Did I miss it or was there any comment on this at DD?

[Virtual Bison]

Thats fucked up!

[Dickie Billericay]

Barn door now locked.  Or at least closed a bit.  Or maybe it will be early next year.  What's the rush, it's not like anyone got killed.

Yes, being a learning institution, we always want to learn from what happens.  Because we are too stupid to think of it before it happens.

Just because "there have been a lot of incidents nationally of workplace violence" is no reason to think that hiring and then firing a convicted felon who just spent 5 years in prison might cause any problems.  It's only the second largest university in the US; not like they had any money to run background checks, especially after the president gets his $1.6 million.  

OSU to alter hiring policies in wake of shooting
Thursday, September 2, 2010  02:59 AM
By Collin Binkley
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Prompted by a shooting at Ohio State University in March that left two dead and one wounded, university officials plan to change several hiring policies by early next year.

The recommended changes were announced in a campus-wide e-mail sent yesterday by Larry Lewellen, OSU's vice president of human resources.

Lewellen did not mention the shooting incident in the e-mail, which cited several catalysts for the changes.

But in a Dispatch interview, Lewellen said the shooting helped drive the discussion among university leaders.

"Being a learning institution, we always want to learn from what happens," he said.

Two of the five recommended changes deal with background checks: All people hired will go through background checks before starting work, and one company will do all the checks.

Last year, the e-mail said, OSU checked the background of 90 percent of those it hired. Three years ago, only a third were checked, he estimated.

On March 9, fired maintenance worker Nathaniel Brown shot two of his bosses and then killed himself in a campus building.

Afterward, OSU officials said they would not have hired Brown had they known he served five years in prison for receiving stolen property. That did not turn up in his background check.

Lewellen stopped short of citing criticism of OSU procedures as a major motive for change. "It isn't the primary reason," he said. "We didn't just move into background checks - we've been doing that for three years."

Five vendors now conduct the checks. Bids will be taken on a new contract with one company.

Under the third recommended change, civil-service employees who are fired during their six-month probationary period will have to stop working immediately. Now, some supervisors let workers stay on while they look for another job.

Brown had been notified a week before the shootings that he was going to lose his job in his probationary period, but he continued to work.

Immediate termination is not only "the cleanest separation from the university," but it's also a safety measure, Lewellen said. "Frankly, there have been a lot of incidents nationally of workplace violence."

The other two recommended changes are: ensuring that all supervisors remove terminated employees' access to sensitive data, and requiring employees to notify the university if they are convicted of certain crimes.

Employees have not been required to disclose convictions, but in nearly all cases, those crimes don't have a bearing on the employees' jobs, Lewellen said.

He said the immediate-termination policy is expected to be in place in a month or two, and the others by winter.

OSU police have not released their final report on the March shooting. Deputy Chief Richard Morman said the university's legal team is reviewing the document.

[ham]

Ohio State's Web site said the building where the shooting occurred was secured, and some traffic restrictions remained in place Tuesday morning. "The university continues normal operations," the school said. "Classes will be held and normal work schedules are in effect."

E-mail alerts were sent to students warning them about the shooting, the university said.

The shooting comes after the university issued e-mail alerts last week about two alleged sexual assaults and an attempted assault on campus, Ohio State's student newspaper reported.

Wow...fond memories of the fantastic interaction B&M universities do provide...