The Longwood University Emergency Response Team (LUERT) is temporarily suspended on campus. There were precautions that were taken by the university as well as the police department to ensure the situation was under control.
“I was in the office and 3 officers came in with emergency manager Lucy Smith and a maintenance [personnel], one of the officers first directed me to grab my backpack and get out,” said the captain of the LUERT Corey Davis. “They said that they were seizing the office and all of our assets and that it had gone through the presidents office that we were no longer an Organization.”
“There were a lot of safety concerns that came up, some of the concerns were with the storage of some oxygen tanks,” says Student Government Association President Joe Gills. “When we started looking into safety organizations we realized a lot of concurs regarding insurance liabilities.”
According to Tim Pierson, Vice President of Student Affairs, the concern came directly from Longwood’s Chief of Police Robert Beach and Lucy Smith, they brought these concerns to his office. “I thought good to have SGA involved since it is a student organization,” says Pierson.
According to Corey Davis, Jonnelle Davis, Assistant Director for University Center Operations, was being told that the LUERT had been harboring dangerous equipment and that’s why the police interfered the way they did.
“The remedy was for whatever was determined to be of potential danger to be taken out of there, next step is you determine what are you going to do and what clarity does the org need,” said Pierson. “The group has been communicated with so we are hoping to move forward and to get things straightened out.”
According to Corey Davis they were accused of having a room full of oxygen tanks.
“We have two, they are both stored in approved bags and they are appropriately stored per fire code,” he said. “They are no more dangerous than a fire extinguisher. It is just a compressed bottle so to claim that an oxygen tank were dangerous would be to say a fire extinguisher was dangerous.”
“If the investigation turns up with anything we will be charged with honorary conduct board charges,” said Corey Davis. “If it doesn’t turn up anything we will be fully reinstated.”
According to Pierson the issue is with the organization, but there aren’t students that are going to be held accountable for that. It is a temporary suspension until we get this straightened out and get them back to active status.
“It is important for this group to be here, they have an important role with the emergency management,” said Pierson. “I have a lot of respect for them and what they are willing to do, and I think that’s right in line with our mission; service and leadership.”
