MU Alert has made a series of high-profile faux pas in the past month.

The system’s basic function is to alert students to any “personae non gratae” in the vicinity of the campus. Any potentially violent or harmful event is supposed to be noted and relayed to the student body via mass alert texts and emails, and even phone calls for some.

One would think that a bomb threat or armed and dangerous perp on campus would warrant an alert text. One would think our vigilant security personnel, the guardians of our well-being, would spring into action upon the first inkling of menace.

Alas, no. This kind of dutiful diligence has been lost on the operators of MU Alert. There was indeed an [armed and dangerous perp on campus grounds](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/4/15/armed-robbery-suspect-shot-after-confrontation-cpd/) April 15. Police eventually confronted and fatally shot the suspect in Hitt Street Garage. But students did not hear anything of the perp’s presence until [11:26 p.m.](http://mualert.missouri.edu/), nearly five hours after the [initial tweet from the Columbia Police Department](https://twitter.com/ColumbiaPD/status/588532586693038081) about the armed robbery downtown. The perp was already dead by the time students were notified.

One week later, an anonymous caller called the MU Student Center saying there was a bomb somewhere in the “student union.” As a precaution, [students were evacuated from the Student Center](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/4/22/student-center-memorial-union-evacuated-after-bomb/). Some time later, Memorial Union was evacuated as well.

There was a [flurry of activity on Twitter](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/4/21/storify-bomb-threat-prompts-evacuation-mu-student-/) during and after the evacuations. The bulk of the commentary wasn’t related to the bomb threat; rather, it was snide jabs at MU Alert. Students were decrying the lack of proactivity by the administration, which did little to disseminate news of the bomb threat outside of scant social media postings.

In other words, students who didn’t happen to tune into the Twittersphere during the hours of the bomb scare were hung out to dry. Administrators’ formal excuse for withholding an alert text about the bomb threat was that the “threat was isolated.”

Administrators cannot assume anything. They cannot assume information will be spread, especially if their error can lead to the endangerment of students.

If that was the sincere result of following protocol, then the protocol needs to change. On a campus of 34,000 students, that kind of callous nonchalance, concerning the armed gunman and the bomb threat alike, is simply unacceptable.