There was a man who began shooting at people in Western Psychiatric Hospital here today, and the story hit most major news outlets, I guess. It was a horrible thing, where the gunman began shooting at just anyone, and lots of people got hit -- 7 or 8. Just one person besides the gunman himself died. So far.

The hospital is the main place for psych care and had plenty of security once you get past a certain point. There's a metal detector in most of the UPMC hospitals, but it'll usually be a few steps inside the door.

The lobby entrance where he went in was like that, so had a weak point. (At first, news stories were saying he went in by the emergency entrance.)

This event set off a "Bronze Alert," which I assume is a Homeland Security designation, and the response to it is surely formed by DHS.

Pittsburgh gave a nice demonstration of how it would respond to a terroristic situation. What happened? The outer doors of quite a few large buildings (I'm counting around 10 or more) locked automatically so no one could go in or out, and about 200 police from City police, County police, PA state police, U. of Pittsburgh police, and Port Authority police came. Lots and lots of SWAT trucks and lots of armor. There were snipers too.

As one woman who was there explained, during a lockdown the doors leading to the outside (or to another connecting building) lock automatically. No one can get in, or leave. This lasted for several hours.

This automatic lockdown today extended to: University of Pittsburgh buildings near the hospital (since Western Psych belongs to Pitt), including Western Psych, Presbyterian Hospital, an Eye and Ear clinic, the School of Graduate Studies in Health, Children's Hospital, and even Shadyside Hospital -- which is about 2 miles away. Also, at least two high schools -- Central Catholic and Oakland Catholic -- and a grade school were locked down too. Parents who showed up at the schools during the event were not allowed to get their kids.
Those schools are so many blocks away it's kind of weird. However, the response plan for the city had to take in a lot of possibilities.

I can see how locking the schools in this situation is safer, but all those buildings locked in the center of town seems like a danger in itself to me. I just hope that the possibility of a fresh emergency arising inside one of them (not the place where the shooter was) during the lockdown is part of the response plan.