Buckeye Alert fails to notify students of shooting death near campus
Ohio State deemed that sending an alert to students wasn’t necessary
Early Thursday morning Ohio State student Tarak Andrew Underiner was found deceased in his home on Northwood Ave. from apparent gunshot wounds. Underiner was a strong voice for Buckeyes for Concealed Carry on Campus.
Following the incident the Buckeye Alert system failed to notify students of the situation even though no suspect had been arrested in connection with the incident. Those investigating the case don’t believe the incident was random and it was deemed not to have ties to Ohio State.
Ohio State’s Office of Administration and Planning claims that the incident didn’t warrant a campus wide notification. When determining whether or not to notify the Ohio State community those is charge of the system take into consideration the information available, whether there is an imminent threat to campus, and the location of the incident. Because of the supposed isolated nature of the shooting and the belief of investigators that it was in no way tied to the university it’s likely they didn’t want to cause a false alarm or induce panic.
Even though investigators had a good reason to believe that the unknown assailant who shot Underiner wasn’t a threat to the rest of the community it’s difficult to predict whether an isolated incident has the potential to turn into something more dangerous. The least the university could have done is notify the students that there had been a shooting so that those living in the campus area were aware of the potential of someone wandering around with a gun. Due to the few facts released to the public it’s unclear whether it was a robbery or something else.
If you have any information on the shooting please contact University Police or the Columbus Division of Police. Our thoughts go out to Tarak’s friends and family.