Many students were shocked by local news reports about a string of assaults that took place Sunday morning near campus. Though Spectator reported the incident on Monday, it took the Department of Public Safety until Wednesday morning to send out an e-mail to students about the attacks. If Public Safety is truly worried about keeping students safe, it must learn to communicate with students immediately after crimes occur in the University area.
According to Public Safety reports, a group of young men assaulted seven pedestrians in five incidents only a block away from campus. Though five suspects have been apprehended, the incidents are still under investigation. These assaults took place early Sunday morning, but Public Safety did not send out a school-wide e-mail with information regarding the incidents until Wednesday. This message only contained cursory information about the attacks. Indeed, many students first heard about the string of assaults from local news reporters who came to campus to report the story on Tuesday.
Public Safety should notify the community about serious crimes as soon as information becomes available. The department's failure to inform students about the attacks is both alarming and dangerous. Alerts posted on Public Safety's Web site Sunday and Monday demonstrate that officials had enough information about the event to warn students about a potential safety threat. When suspects were still at large, a prompt, University-wide e-mail could have helped police identify suspects more quickly. Though in this case no attacks were reported after early Sunday morning, in the future a rapid alert would keep students on the lookout for an attacker, potentially preventing further incidents. This is not the first time the department has failed to properly communicate security threats. Last semester, for example, this Board criticized Public Safety for its poor crime notification system, specifically regarding muggings outside the Woodbridge and Schapiro dormitories.
Prompt dissemination of criminal activity keeps students safer and aids attempts to apprehend suspects. Television interviews featuring students who have not yet heard about a string of serious crimes reflect poorly on the Department of Public Safety and on the University as a whole. While details of Sunday's attacks remain unclear, one thing is for certain —Public Safety must re-examine its methods of keeping students in the loop.
