Phone Call Saves Lives on University of New Haven Campus
From the CT Post: When police arrested William Dong on the University of New Haven campus, he had two handguns with a belly full of bullets, and a loaded Bushmaster rifle stashed in his car down the street.
But Dong never emptied a single shell Tuesday as West Haven and campus police thwarted what could’ve been a mass shooting just 11 days before the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
A portrait emerged Wednesday of Dong — the 22-year-old Fairfield resident and UNH criminal justice student — as a young man obsessed with guns and mass murders who hoarded more than 2,700 rounds of ammunition in his padlocked bedroom.
“I don’t know what it was, but something bad was going to happen, either (Tuesday) or sometime in the future,” said Fairfield Police Chief Gary MacNamara, after police found a disturbing trove of news clippings about mass killings, including stories about the Aurora, Colo., movie theater slayings during a search of Dong’s Stratfield Road house Tuesday night.
The message of alerting authorities to possible signs of danger is spreading effectively, allowing authorities to step in before incidents of violence occur.
Firestorm is currently engaged to help keep hundreds of schools and tens of thousands of students safer. Our Principals and Expert Council members have the strongest credentials in the school safety industry; we have responded to some of the nation’s greatest school tragedies—including Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Platte Canyon.
The main take away from all of these tragic events is that there is no single solution to prevention or mitigation. Only through the implementation of a preparedness program, that incorporates assessment, planning, training, and testing, along with the use of equipment, technology and most importantly, human resources, is there the greatest potential to make a difference in the outcome.
In this instance, Fairfield Police Chief Gary MacNamara said a female witness who called police after spotting Dong with a rifle “probably thwarted a shooting, based on the totality of what we have so far.”
Dong was arrested Tuesday on the UNH campus after being spotted holding a Bushmaster XM-15 assault-style rifle, which he later placed in the seat of his car parked in a lot near Campbell Avenue. He then walked onto the campus carrying a loaded semi-automatic handgun and had another loaded handgun in his briefcase, along with extra ammunition. No shots were fired and Dong was arrested without incident.
In all, Dong had nearly 230 rounds of ammunition with him, between what he left in the car and what he possessed when arrested.
“What should we do now?” “What should we say?”