Criticism of untimely notifications through St. Joe’s SJU Safe Emergency Notification System (ENS) has again surfaced among students following the fatal shooting of a man on the street outside Villiger Hall April 14.
Students’ frustration stems from the two-hour gap between the shooting and an SJU Safe alert. The university received similar criticism for its delayed communication following a report of a false active shooter in the Francis A. Drexel Library in March 2023.
Around 10:45 p.m., Tyreese Quinerley shot Jefferson Shackford twice at the intersection of City and Cardinal avenues, according to a report from the Office of the District Attorney in Montgomery County. Shackford was transported to Lankenau Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Quinerley has since turned himself in to police.
Neither man is associated with the university.
St. Joe’s Office of Public Safety & Security first became aware of the incident at 11:24 p.m. on April 14, when Lower Merion Police requested camera footage for their investigation, wrote David Finnie, assistant vice president of Public Safety, in response to written questions from The Hawk.
At 1 a.m. on April 15, an alert was sent to the St. Joe’s community through SJU Safe, notifying all students of the police activity and stating the victim had reportedly been shot earlier in the night, two miles away at North 56th Street and Lansdowne Avenue.
While it was later determined that Shackford was actually shot on City Avenue, Public Safety was sharing “the information we had at the time,” which was given to them by Lower Merion Police, Finnie wrote.
In the approximately two hours before Public Safety sent the SJU Safe alert, students in Villiger and McShain Halls gathered in their floor lounges to observe the police activity.
Jack Dierfield ’27 and Emily Tolchin ’27 heard the gunshots while doing homework in Tolchin’s residence hall room in Villiger.
“We heard two muffled shots, they were quiet,” Dierfield said. “They were high pitched and were not that loud, so we didn’t really think anything of it, but we still ran to the window and checked.”
From Tolchin’s window, they saw a green van stopped at the light on Cardinal and City Avenue.
“We thought it was a car crash or something gave out,” Tolchin said.
They rushed over to a lounge that overlooks the intersection, where a group of residents had congregated.
“There were a bunch of cop cars, then an ambulance pulled up later and we saw them put a guy into the ambulance,” Tolchin said. “He had a bag over his head and we saw blood.”
The Montgomery County District Attorney’s report later stated that Quinerley had been driving on City Avenue when he stopped at a red light at City and Cardinal avenues and exited his vehicle. He then fired two gunshots into Shackford’s vehicle, and a few minutes later, removed Shackford from the vehicle and left him on the sidewalk.
Lower Merion Police responded to a 911 call from Quinerley, who claimed he almost hit Shackford with his car. Quinerley spoke to police at the scene before being allowed to leave, according to the report. Medics discovered Shackford had two gunshot wounds as they prepared him to be taken to Lankenau Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, the report said.
As students watched from their residence halls, they took to social media. Some shared they heard gunshots or saw a body, some claimed police had already apprehended the shooter or the police presence was due to a car crash, and many wondered when the university would send out an alert.
Tolchin said the delay in the SJU Safe alert was “disappointing.”
“When our RA said that [Public Safety] would release an announcement, we didn’t think it would take that long to say something,” Tolchin said.
The alert was not sent earlier because Public Safety was gathering “as much information as possible,” and because police were already present on the scene, Finnie wrote. So, “this was no longer an active incident scene but rather was contained and turned to an investigative scene.”
SJU Safe alerts are sent to “communicate updates about active situations,” Finnie wrote.
Caitlin Curran ’27, honors chair for University Student Senate, was also in a Villiger lounge observing the police presence on City Avenue. Curran said she believes a notification should have been sent out much earlier, even if there was not much information to share yet.
“I think that as soon as there’s a police presence on campus, they need to send out an alert just to let people know and if there’s some sort of incident happening with police presence on campus,” Curran said. “They need to tell us to stay inside at the very least.”
When asked why Public Safety does not send alerts as soon as it learns of a significant police presence or disruption, Finnie wrote, “This particular report from the police did not come in as a normal alert. Rather, police contacted the Office of Public Safety & Security to ask for support in an investigation and requested we check our cameras.”
Finnie continued, “When the police let us know, the scene was already under investigation. There was no action for students to take and no report of a continuing threat. As we began to hear from our community members, we decided it would be best to share what we knew at that specific time.”
In a follow-up email sent to the St. Joe’s community at 1:45 p.m. on April 15, Finnie reiterated that no St. Joe’s community members were involved and added that the SJU Safe notification had been an informational alert prompted by “the police and media presence and road closures.”
This email did not contain updated information regarding the incident itself. After the Office of the District Attorney in Montgomery County released their report of the incident the morning of April 16, revealing Shackford had been shot on City Avenue, the university did not send out any additional messages because the alert system is “not [used] to share information that is publicly available,” Finnie wrote.
“When this information became available, the incident impacting campus had been resolved,” Finnie wrote.
But many students, especially those like Curran who were watching from their residence halls, had already been affected.
“I would say the leading emotion was lots of sadness,” Curran said. “We were really sad for the man that had died. That has stuck with me and my friends throughout this whole week. We just went back to our dorms and cried together.”
