MSU installing new classroom door locks after deadly campus shooting

Four months after a deadly mass shooting at Michigan State University, crews are installing new door locks on all of the university's classroom doors as part of a broad effort to boost security.

In a letter to the university community Wednesday, MSU Interim President Teresa Woodruff said facilities crews are installing hundreds of new classroom door locks "that can be secured from the inside while letting emergency personnel enter using a key."

"Meanwhile, our independent third-party after-action review is underway as we work to open a campus security operations center, integrate security systems and develop procedures for real-time monitoring," said Woodruff in her letter.

Crews have been installing new door locks since late May to better secure 850 classrooms and laboratories, said spokesperson Emily Guerrant. The majority of the locks should be installed by the start of the fall semester.

Three students were killed in the Feb. 13 shooting on MSU's campus that unfolded in a classroom at Berkey Hall and the student union: Arielle Anderson, 19, of Harper Woods; Brian Fraser, 20, of Grosse Pointe; and Alexandria Verner, 20, of Clawson. Five students also were critically injured.

In March, MSU said it planned to outfit 1,300 classrooms on campus with the new locks by the fall, as one of series of steps to enhance security.

MSU Chief of Police Marlon Lynch said in an email to the community earlier this month that the campus alert notification systems now include verbal announcements through outdoor emergency weather sirens and MSU Green Light emergency phones. The university is also looking into capabilities to use Voice over Internet Protocol to allow desk phones to be used as an audible alert in offices. MSU also implemented push notifications for the SafeMSU application.

Other measures planned by the university in March included extending the daily times when key cards are required to enter buildings by five hours, adding more cameras to the network of more than 2,000 security cameras and mandatory active violence intruder training.

An exact timeline for the security measures and when they'll be installed before the new school year begins wasn't released.

Woodruff said the university, which has roughly 39,000 students and 560 buildings on its 5,200-acre campus, has set aside $8 million for new investments in campus safety initiatives, "which have been developed with extensive campus community input," she wrote in her newsletter.

"We have continued to strengthen our campus alert systems to include outdoor emergency weather sirens and our campus Green Light emergency phones," she said.

Hours after the Feb. 13 shooting on campus, police identified the gunman as 43-year-old Anthony McRae. Officials said McRae shot and killed himself as police approached the Lansing home he was in, about four miles from the campus in East Lansing.