Verified verbatim2429 chars
We have heard concerns and criticism from many members of the UW community and beyond about the UW Advisory and UW Alert messages that went out Monday ahead of and during some demonstrations near University Village. Bottom line: We hear you and we will take this feedback seriously moving forward.
The notification system is designed to provide information to the UW community about disruptions or emergencies that could threaten their safety. (Learn more about the notification system here). The first advisory was sent as a precaution about a protest that police had reason to believe was intended to incite violence, property damage and theft, and not as a peaceful demonstration intended to call attention to the very real and serious issue of systemic racism. In hindsight, it is clear that the initial note to avoid the area could be read as a directive to not attend a protest. That was not its intention but in retrospect, we should have been clearer and will aim to in the future.
Regarding the second message, the Safeway store near University Village was broken into and was being looted by several people. As part of this incident, an individual who we learned later is a UW student was assaulted by multiple people trying to force their way into the store. All of this occurred within a span of about 15 minutes and the decision was made to send a UW Alert message to advise the UW community about a potentially dangerous situation, especially considering the location which has student housing around it in multiple directions.
A nearby traffic camera that was pointed toward Safeway showed a peaceful group of protestors sitting in the Safeway parking lot, and some helicopter footage showed University Village itself was heavily guarded and clear of anyone except for police patrolling the area. UW police contacts on the ground reported the activity at Safeway, and confirmed that the broken windows and looting was out of view of these cameras. We made the decision to send the message based on the information available at the time and did not intend to imply that the full group was involved in any such activity.
Finally, every time the Crisis Communications Team is convened, we conduct an after-action review to assess, analyze and learn from every decision we make and every message we send. We understand that words matter, and we will take this feedback and consider it when making future decisions.
Transcribed from official emergency.uw.edu Alert Blog entry body.
Confirmed-verbatim recovery from live institutional source.