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Penn State Shooting In 1996 Hauntingly Familiar

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Apr 18, 2007 6:55 pm US/Eastern

Penn State Shooting In 1996 Hauntingly Familiar

(KDKA) The deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Tech this week is hauntingly familiar to a local university.

In 1996 at Penn State University, 19-year-old Jillian Robbins, who had a psychiatric history, took a rifle to campus just after 7am, read the paper behind some bushes and opened fire.

Melanie Spalla, of Altoona, was killed. Nicholas Mensah, a native of Ghana, was seriously wounded.

Brendan Malovrh, from suburban Philadelphia, wrestled the rifle away from Robbins.

University and religious counseling was available even a year after the shooting.

Eleven years later, Penn State has drawn on that experience and in some ways gave them a jump start on planning for the worst.

"Well, it was the first time anything like that had happened here and the only time, so it probably was a wake up call," University Vice President Bill Mahon said.

"That scenario was much like what happened at Virginia," he said. "In some sense, at least that first shooting there. It was over in a couple of seconds. It was over before the police who are only two blocks away could get to the scene."

Since then, and as a result of 9/11, the university has regular training and planning sessions for police and the administration.

Last year, they already added an alert feature that has been talked about at Virginia Tech – a text message alert system for cell phones.

But the size of the campus affects other security decisions.

"We're as open as any small town or I guess downtown Pittsburgh," Mahon said, "So the idea of locking down the place wouldn't be any easier than locking down downtown Pittsburgh. So that's not very realistic."

This week's events at Virginia Tech have caused many college students to think about safety.

"It's just scary that it's an open campus and that anybody could be carrying something, but I think it's honestly somebody who has mental problems," Freshman Brittany Bart said.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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