Here are some basics around in-person safety when it comes to dealing with people who are demonstrating behaviour of concern: 

UW PD 

If you experience threatening behaviour, UW PD is here to help. 

• In emergency situations, 911 remains the number to call, but be prepared to identify that you are calling from the UW Seattle campus and give our building/ floor/ office number: Padelford Hall, A-wing, Plaza Level, Suite A-002. 
• UW PD’s non-emergency number is 206-685-8973 and remember - this number is listed under the handsets of your office phones. Add it to your mobile as a contact if you have not already. 

911 calls made from office phones will go directly to UW PD, and mobile phones pinging on campus will usually connect with UW PD or Washington State Patrol.  

Dedicated Outreach at UW for People Experiencing Homelessness 

• Samya Murthy, REACH UW Outreach Coordinator (206-685-8973) 

• Dedicated outreach worker at the UW Seattle campus with a goal to build relationships with people experiencing homelessness and connect them with the help they need. 

 

Safety in Numbers 

• We keep our doors open by default so that where possible; this is for several reasons, but an important one is to prevent someone from being penned into a small office with their exit shut. 

• Stay aware of discussions you can hear in the office where possible; if it sounds like someone might need some help, pop your head out and offer support if you feel comfortable. 

• Where possible, coordinate with others and be ready to call UW PD. Do not assume someone else will do it first or that duplicate calls will be redundant. 

• Where possible, work to avoid situations where a single person is left alone in the office with doors unlocked, even for part of the day – close and lock the doors until colleagues return. Over an extended period, arrange to work remotely if necessary. 

• To ensure no staff member is left alone in the office, notify team members if you will be out. If your absence would leave only one person in the office, contact the team members scheduled to be in the office with you as soon as possible via phone or text message (instead of Teams). This notification should be made promptly to prevent unnecessary commuting.

 

Communications 

• Use Teams to communicate silently with others in the office where possible if you’re the one experiencing an interaction making you uncomfortable – it may be easier than reaching for the phone, but use whatever method is most appropriate for your circumstances. 

• If you’re nearby and suspect someone may need help, pop your head in or call to ask if they need help. Use duress phrases on the phone so someone can confirm they need help in a way that doesn’t escalate things – an example might be “If you need help, say that you don’t need that DARS audit right now.” 

• If you’re calling out on the phone for help, a suggestion may be either a pre-arranged duress phrase, or a phrase so obviously off that it prompts questions to a staff listener, but a student or member of the public wouldn’t immediately suspect anything. An example might be “Can you help me use a minor audit exception to remove a class from a transcript?”   

 

Barriers & Tools 

• If things start to escalate but aren’t yet an emergency, avoid conflict and work to keep large furniture in between you and the person in question where possible. 

• Our rolling office chairs, while light, are bulky enough that they can act as a barrier or something that can push someone back for a short time. 

• The standing lamps and the iPad stand in our main lobby area could be used as tools to break windows and clear glass for an emergency exit. 

• Our office space only has one entry/exit route, so thinking in calmer times about how you’d use windows or where you’d try to move to in an emergency if you need to evacuate is a good idea.  

 

Zoom 

Next, here are some steps that can be used in the virtual space to protect ourselves from abuse: 

• While it’s disappointing that there isn’t a way to block an individual quickly and easily from making appointments at the source through ScheduleOnce, we can still unilaterally cancel appointments when they’re made if the appointment looks like it’s being made by a person of concern. 

• Remember it is possible to block/ mute someone, boot them out, and report them on Zoom. For a meeting in progress, right clicking on their username in zoom will bring up the option to mute, remove, and report. 

If the interaction happened in a drop-in session that has since finished, or they left before you could act, here’s how to report them:  

• Sign in to Zoom on the web. For drop-ins   

• In the navigation menu, click Meetings.  

• Click the Previous tab.  

• Hover over a meeting or webinar, then click Report to Zoom and follow the prompts.   

You can change settings around meeting security for your own zoom room. Most advanced settings are only available through the settings page on the browser-based version of zoom, so use that rather than the app to look at security settings. 

 

Additional Considerations 

• Same goes on Teams: Technically, anyone within UW can start a message thread with anyone else on teams. Certain contacts can be manually blocked, and your status can be set to a blanket “do not disturb” that allows you to create a “permitted users” list of people who can still reach you even when “do not disturb” is on. 

• An app called “SafeZone” exists that can be downloaded onto computers or mobile devices that allows you to signal for assistance on campus. UW-IT or CAS-IT will need to be the ones to install the app on your device; it’s not available for download from the web, but uses a UW NetID sign on. 

• Sign up for UW Alert text messages. UW Alerts are issued by the Crisis Communications teams at each campus in the event of an incident requiring your awareness and action — to remain in place, leave an area of campus or avoid an area. You may already receive UW Alerts via email, but please check your account to make sure you’re receiving alerts via text message. 

• Note: After you add your information, go to Groups (in the purple bar at the top of the UW Alert signup page) to select the UW Seattle campus. If you do not select a group, you will not receive messages.

 

Irritable Individual

Series of steps: individual de-escalation, stating requirements for treatment norms, helping them move out of the space. Using a zoom appointment as an excuse to shut the door. 

For a random person wandering in, the ultimate goal is to extract them and close the doors. This applies to folks who are clearly not students, we can direct them to a plausible fake office like “admissions” or “UAA advising” via a fake building name. Direct them to a specific place so that we can tell UWPD where they’re headed along with their description. The UW tower on Brooklyn Avenue is a good option, because they have additional security there.

 

Active shooter

According to UW PD active shooter trainings, statistically, the people who were able to flee had the highest likelihood of survival. As such, the team’s preference is to prioritise running over hiding first, then hiding. Protocols should also account for or be adaptable whatever communication may be coming from UWPD.

Webcams are available to look at red square and the quad to see what’s going on around main areas of campus.

In a run scenario, communication with each other is important. Route:

If around bathrooms on 1^st floor, try and use B wing stairs to get to LL floor, then get to the back of PDL to try and get to the N16 parking lot. Don’t take any personal belongings. If in the office on the PL floor, draw blinds immediately, verify emergency exit is OK, then leave and run down the stairs as fast as possible from N16 parking to Burke Gilman. Running downhill is an excellent way to quickly put distance between yourself and campus. 

If others are in the suite, ask them if they’re OK to run. If yes, proceed with above. If no, confirm what you and they are willing to do. It is not a requirement to stay or lay down your life for others in this scenario.

In a hide scenario, draw all blinds immediately, stay low to the floor, start barricading. In vestibule, empty filing cabinets and then move them in front of the door horizontally to barricade and throw as much in the way as possible with the tables and chairs. Grab fire extinguisher to use as a last ditch blinding weapon, head inside to main suite, start barricading door here, push program coordinator cube and sofas in front of main door along with anything else (fridge, filing cabinets etc.) If someone’s not in the suite, proceed to the closest safest space and enact hide protocols there.

John’s office (PDL-002A) is the only one where the door can be barricaded from the inside, so proceed in there, barricading both door and window-facing portion of desk. Get under desk with lights off to the extent possible. Stay away from doors and windows.

Fight scenario: working in teams, use anything to hand: fire extinguishers, trash cans, furniture, tablet stands, hot water, etc. Disarming is the priority, if you’re trying to grab the weapon, use yourself and gravity to get them on the floor while others are working to restrain. If throwing things at an attacker, watch out for “crossfire”; don’t put yourself in a postition where things that are thrown could hit you. 

Don’t try to use the weapon or hold the weapon. Make it difficult to reach, cover it to avoid first responders mistaking you for the shooter. When leaving under instructions, make sure hands are visible, above your head, and follow all instructions. Once safe, verify where everyone else is via chat thread so we can account for the team.

 

Long-term Internet/ Systems Outage

• If there is an outage with the appointments booking system, we will temporarily pivot to using drop-in advising (no appointments needed) until the outage is resolved. Physical signage should be updated to reflect the shift to drop-ins throughout Padelford, and peer advising units/ departments should be notified of this update to operations if the outage extends beyond a week. If possible, add an autoreply on emails to spread the word. 
• If University systems for submitting grad apps (ugradoff) and Major/Minor Update (MMU) forms (registra) are down, requests should revert to using PDFs over email for MMUs and email based graduation requests if the outage is time sensitive. Otherwise, requests should be delayed until the outage is resolved. 
• Degree Audit (DARS) update requests previously conducted through EARS should revert to email, while files access should revert from onedrive to local backups in the event of a OneDrive outage. For Wifi/ network connectivity issues, attempt to use cellular hotspots for access.
• In the event of a long-term EARS outage, not much can be done: this will mean we have no collective access to transcripts, registration, or audits. One soluation may be to see if SDB (Keynes) can work for audits and registration readouts if EARS does not, but appointment notes should be taken in word and saved for export later.

 

Data loss/ Ransomware

• Regular, preventative work is needed to overcome this situation: 
• Ensure mailing lists are saved and backed up locally each quarter after 10^th Day
• Ensure contents of Onedrive is backed up locally each quarter after 10^th Day
• Ensure email mirrors are backed up locally each quarter at the end of the quarter
• In general, best practice would be to have multiple backups: one on each laptop, and one on an external drive in cold storage. Please note, cold storage does not literally mean putting an external hard drive in a freezer; in data security terms, cold-storage means an external drive with no connections to the internet. 

 

Malware Attack

• Isolate affected accounts/ machines. Do not attempt to login or move files. Disconnect from internet entirely and cover webcam.
• Flag the intrusion with CAS-IT and UW-IT via an uncompromised machine's accounts. Once that has been taken care of, use a clean machine to change access credentials and your UW NetID login. As an office, we may need to also change access credentials for ScheduleOnce, Constant Contact, our central inbox, and Adobe Creative Cloud. 
• Lastly, seek specialist help in wiping, rebuilding, or replacing affected machines. It may be necessary to request a clean interim machine from CAS-IT.

 

Elevator Entrapment

Press the emergency call button in the elevator. This may be labeled with a phone symbol, “call,” or “emergency phone.” This button connects you directly to emergency maintenance dispatch and transmits which elevator you are trapped in. If the call button is not working, call Facilities Customer Care at 206-685-1900. They will contact the dispatch team on your behalf and stay on the line with you.

Stay put until maintenance personnel arrive. Emergency maintenance personnel are available on campus 24/7 and respond to elevator entrapments as quickly as possible. Depending on their location, the time of day, and campus activities, it may take them some time to arrive.

If the elevator frees you before personnel arrive, please call Customer Care to report that you are no longer trapped. There may be an issue with the elevator and technicians will assess to make sure it is running properly. Do not try to pry open the elevator doors if you are trapped inside. If the doors open between floors, do not try to exit the elevator car. 

Remain calm, stay inside the elevator, and wait for maintenance personnel. You are safest inside the car – attempting to open the doors from the inside or crawling out between designated floor stops can result in serious injury. If you are in communication with a person trapped in an elevator, instruct them to use the emergency call button. If you aren’t sure whether or not the person has pressed the emergency call button, you can call Customer Care to report the issue.

 

Immigration enforcement on-campus

If a student, faculty member or staff person on a UW campus or in a UW location is approached by a federal enforcement officer who requests access to UW facilities, inquires about members of the campus community or requests access to records, please follow these guidelines.