Students are mourning the loss of Destiny Washington, a UAB student that was shot and killed last night in the Hill Student Center parking lot.
The shooting took place on UAB’s campus. A B-Alert notification was not sent to students, and some students were concerned about that choice.
“B-Alerts are sent when there is an active threat to campus,” UAB wrote in an email to the student body. “UAB Police determined there was no active threat to campus at the time they were notified.”
Some students, including Ryan Henderson, sophomore in biology, said they disagree and would have preferred to receive a B-Alert notification.
“Destiny Washington was killed on our campus,” Henderson said. “There’s no telling where anyone could have been at the time of the incident. There are still fellow Blazers who are living, working or are just in the area during our winter break.”
Henderson said she believes students should be informed of any incident on or around campus.
“No one knew or knows if the shooter could have had any other intentions of harming anyone else,” Henderson said.
Henderson said there is no reason a B-Alert shouldn’t have been sent to students.
“There have been multiple instances where B-Alerts have been sent out with a variety of different situations,” Henderson said. “It made me question if UAB was hiding the situation or if they wanted to come out with a formal statement.”
Other students took to Twitter to voice their opinions.
@Nallyse_ had over 150 retweets and almost 49 quote tweets agreeing with her.
“A girl was killed outside the Hill Center and UAB didn’t send a B-Alert or anything about it,” Read the tweet.
Cierra Clemons, senior in public health, said she thinks it’s UAB’s responsibility to notify others when dangerous events occur on campus.
“We received this email the following day the shooting occurred.” Clemons said. “I feel like all students, parents and staff should have been notified immediately for safety precautions. Especially since there are students who had to stay on campus for this winter break.”
