campus safety and security

Current faculty and staff at Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Complete and submit the Rave Panic Button form.

When any of the emergency buttons is pressed, your phone will dial 911. At the same time, the Rave Panic Button app determines whether you are on a campus you are associated with. If so, emergency notifications will be automatically generated to University Police, campus administrators, and other designated officials and employees. In addition to your call, the 911 call taker is provided with additional information about your campus, such as floor plans and maps, and also given the ability to send additional emergency notifications to key staff or to every authorized employee on campus, depending on the situation.

By using the Rave Panic Button app to contact 911 (while on campus), your campus administrators, University Police, and other key staff will be immediately notified that you have activated the system, thereby speeding response. Additionally, the 911 center will receive a clear indication that the system has been activated and has the ability to deliver additional messages to your campus.

Generally speaking, the Rave Panic Button app can be used for any situation that requires you to contact 911. That could be for a medical emergency, to report suspicious activity, a fire, or an active assailant.

While you won’t be able to download the Rave Panic Button app, you will still be able to receive emergency notifications via text, as long as you provide your mobile number to your supervisor or site administrator. The Rave Panic Button app supports iOS versions 6.0 and later and Android versions 4.0 and later.

You are encouraged to use the Rave Panic Button app to contact 911; however, you should contact 911 in whatever way is fastest.

If you are not on campus, then no notifications will be sent to campus administrators and University Police, but you will still be connected to 911.

Please remain on the line so that you can tell the 911 operator that you accidentally dialed. As soon as your call rings, there is a record of your call having been placed, so if you hang up prior to speaking with an operator, they will have to try to call you back to determine if there is an emergency. If they are unable to reach you, they will dispatch—at a minimum—a police officer to your location to ensure your safety.

Click the menu icon on the top left side of the screen of the Rave Panic Button app and select Test. When pressed, it will inform you as to whether the app successfully located you and whether it located you on a campus that you are associated with. 

If your phone is set to silent, then you will not receive an audible notification of a message. The messages generated through the Rave Panic Button app are sent via in-app message. If the in-app message fails to deliver, or if you are using a phone without the app, a text will be sent. In both cases, an email will also be delivered. 

If you have additional information about an incident to report, or you are with someone who is in need of medical attention, you are encouraged to also contact 911.

The Rave Panic Button app uses your location at the time you activate it to determine whether to treat your call as an activation of the system (generating emergency notifications to campus administrators and law enforcement) or as a regular 911 call (if you are not on campus at the time of your call). The app only accesses your location when you press one of the emergency buttons in the app, or if you use the Test function in the menu. If your location cannot be determined, then your call will be treated as a regular 911 call.

On initial download of the Rave Panic Button app, you are required to allow it to access your location. If you do not, you will be unable to complete the download process. If you press one of the emergency buttons in the Rave Panic Button app while your location is unavailable for any reason (i.e. poor data connection or location services turned off), your phone will still dial 911. Once the 911 operator determines that you are located on an associated campus, they will have the ability to deliver emergency notifications to campus administrators and staff.

If you are in an area with poor cellular voice coverage, then your call to 911 may fail. In a situation where you have poor cellular voice coverage, but a data connection over Wi-Fi, your voice call to 911 may fail, but the Rave Panic Button app will still be able to generate automated messages to your designated campus administrators and University Police. 911 will not receive your information if your voice call fails. If it is safe to do so, move to a different location and try to call again either from your mobile phone or a landline.