Lebanon
Considering that thousands of people were on or near the scene — the hospital responded to the shooting by evacuating and locking down the facility — there were plenty of people available to share information about what was happening.
The information was abundant and almost instantly available. Its quality, however, varied widely.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock used social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter, to announce a “code silver” alert, meaning there was an active shooter in the building. People who were at DHMC shared their observations on the ground. Others at home and elsewhere tuned into police scanners and posted information about developments as they came across them.
While some of this communication helped people stay informed about the emergency as it unfolded, there was misinformation that resulted in false leads to law enforcement, including a rumor about a hostage situation and another about a guy with a knife.
In fact, police attribute the violence at the hospital to one man, Travis Frink, saying he shot his mother four times and killed her while she was being treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
False Tips, False Calls
Social media is a “double-edged sword for us,” said Lebanon Police Chief Richard Mello, in an interview on Friday.
In the early stages of an investigation, law enforcement can’t release a lot of information, which “results in people speculating,” he said.
“We had several false tips or false calls come in,” he said.
For example, a “completely inaccurate” tip about a hostage situation resulted in between five and eight officers being diverted to a section of the hospital that was not under threat.
“That’s dangerous,” Mello said.
In this case, law enforcement didn’t need to seek the public’s help in identifying the shooter, which is something that social media can help with, he said. But, “(we) knew that was a tool in our toolbox,” he said.
Social media, besides providing authorities a channel to receive information, also provides a means to disseminate it.
The city released what limited information it could via an alert system sent to email subscribers and posted on the city’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, he said. Through the alert system, the city informed the public that there was a “serious incident at DHMC” at 2:52 p.m. It then updated that to let people know a suspect had been taken into custody at 3:01 p.m.
The first alert went out almost an hour and a half after the shooting occurred.
There’s a “difference between need to know and want to know,” Mello said.
A ‘Consistent’ Message
The Lebanon Police Department received the first 911 call about a shooting in the hospital’s intensive care unit at 1:24 p.m., according to the affidavit filed in Grafton County Superior Court later in the week.
The affidavit alleges Frink, 48, shot and killed his mother, Pamela Ferriere, a 70-year-old from Groton, N.H., while she was being treated at DHMC. After pleading not guilty at his arraignment last Wednesday, Frink is being held without bail at the Grafton County jail.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which has a full-time social media manager, first posted to Twitter and Facebook at 2:16 p.m. on Tuesday. Like the city’s communication, D-H’s first post was vague, just stating that “Lebanon police are on site.”
The aim from D-H’s perspective was to mirror the alerts that were sent out to staff through the internal alert system, “keeping the same message consistent,” said D-H spokesman Rick Adams.
Communication with employees on the ground was more immediate. The hospital issued the code silver alert at 1:27 p.m., said Josh McElveen, D-H’s vice president of communications and marketing.
The Valley News and other media organizations also took to social media to update the public as information became available during the incident. The Valley News’ first Facebook post informing people that there was an active shooter situation at DHMC went up at 2:22 p.m., and for an extended period on Tuesday afternoon, roughly 1,000 readers were cycling through the story on the Valley News website every 90 seconds, on average. As is often the case, Facebook referrals drove the majority of those readers to the article.
‘A Lot of Stories’
Then there was the communication via social media that occurred outside of official channels.
Many learned of the incident through their Facebook feeds and directly through Facebook Messenger or cellphone texting with friends and family inside the hospital.
Although there was a mix of accurate and misleading information, many users have developed their own methods for separating the two.
On Tuesday, Jessica Johnson, of Norwich, was on her way to DHMC to see her 9-year-old son, Jacob Fletcher, who was in the pediatric intensive care unit following a serious asthma attack a couple of days earlier when she got a Facebook message from Jacob’s grandmother, Michelle Packard, a Dartmouth-Hitchcock employee who was with Jacob in the pediatric ICU.
Packard urged Johnson to turn around and go home, but Johnson continued to drive until she was stopped by police near the intersection of Lahaye Drive and Mount Support Road.
Once stopped, Johnson, who had her 11-month-old child in the car with her, turned to the Upper Valley Facebook page for information.
“Whether it be right or not there was a lot of stories going back and forth,” she said. “It was scary. … Obviously, I was freaking out.”
Packard urged her to stay calm and assured her that hospital and law enforcement officials knew what they were doing.
Johnson learned from Facebook that there was an active shooter in the ICU, but she also heard the rumor about hostages, too.
Instead of paying attention to hearsay, Johnson said, she was more likely to believe people who posted information they learned from the police scanner.
“I guess (Facebook) was helpful,” she said.
She later learned through Facebook that the suspect had been apprehended.
At which point, she said she felt: “Relieved. Like a ton of bricks had been taken off.”
Instead of waiting for hours along the side of the road, Johnson and her baby left and returned at about 7 p.m., after Packard alerted her, via Facebook Messenger, that people were again allowed to come and go from the DHMC campus.
‘A Grain of Salt’
Hannah Sobel, a 2013 Hanover High School graduate who expects to graduate from Middlebury College in February, first learned about the shooting by logging into Facebook.
When she saw the post on the Upper Valley page, and another post from a high school friend, indicating there was an active shooter at DHMC, Sobel called her mother to check on her stepfather and stepbrother, Steven and David Sargent, who both work at DHMC in the radiology department.
“I wasn’t too worried for them,” she said, noting that she expected the hospital would have the necessary protocol in place.
But, even so, it was a surprise.
“(You) don’t think of this happening in your own backyard,” she said.
As the situation unfolded, Sobel continued to follow along on Facebook, listened to the police scanner through an online app and continued texting with her mother.
Some of what she heard wasn’t right.
She was “taking things with a grain of salt,” she said. “I was hearing that some guy killed his mom and ran off with a hostage and was heading down (Interstate) 91. … No way he could have done that.”
She doubted a shooter would be able to escape the vicinity of DHMC, she said.
She eventually learned through the police scanner that the suspected shooter had been apprehended and she shared that information with others on Facebook, she said.
‘It’s Instantaneous’
Maxime Pineau-Valencienne, of Toronto, first learned of the shooting through a Dartmouth College email. Pineau-Valencienne’s daughter, Marie-Capucine Pineau-Valencienne, is a junior majoring in English and history at Dartmouth.
After receiving the college’s email, Pineau-Valencienne promptly hopped onto Facebook, she said.
“My first reaction always is to go to social media,” said Pineau-Valencienne, whose daughter was in Paris when that city was attacked by terrorists in November 2015.
She connected with her daughter via Facebook Messenger and was assured of her safety.
Pineau-Valencienne said she trusted the information she encountered on Facebook because she didn’t think people would intentionally spread misinformation about the event.
“Generally speaking, I think I’ve found people to be good … especially in beautiful Hanover,” she said.
Dartmouth College spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said the college recognizes that people often turn to social media in a time of crisis.
“People were on social media talking about this event starting at 1:34,” Lawrence said. “It was certainly immediate.”
Like Adams, Lawrence emphasized the importance of sharing a consistent message on different platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, as well as the school’s website and through email.
The other thing college officials were able to do in real time was to answer people’s questions — if answers were available — and try to tamp down rumors, Lawrence said.
“It’s instantaneous,” she said, of social media communications. “It’s a very helpful tool in emergency situations.”
Valley News Staff Writer Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
