Al Gentile
Connector Editor
Students, officers speak out about safety Every student remembers those text messages warning them about attacks that have just taken place. Through social media, students and news consumers at large are able to receive information about events minutes after they occur.
Yet, the stories behind them, and what students can do, remain untold.
Kevin Rogers, 21, an operations and information systems major, was walking home in the fall of 2013 on Mount Washington Street, heading back from the grocery store. At approximately 7 p.m., while still light out, an unidentified man with a gun held up Rogers.
“It kinda just shook me up,” Rogers said.
In the attack, Rogers was forced to give up his wallet containing his rent payment, his phone (including the password for it) and, strangely enough, his load of groceries.
After working with the Lowell Police for about an hour, the case was shelved and, according to Rogers, his story became “old news.”
Alan Delossantos, a senior and criminal justice major, was attacked twice, once on North Campus and an- other time by the Tsongas Center in downtown Lowell.
Delossantos did not report the incident. “I felt that I couldn’t really be helped. I’m a Criminal Justice major so I know how it goes down mostly,” he said. “They just write a report and send out a warning to other students and that’s really it.”
When asked whether he felt safe on campus, Delos-santos replied, “In general, yes I do. Just going off campus is your own risk at nighttime. You have to be safe, and not drunk.”
The Connector contacted the Lowell Police Department and the UMass Police Department to comment on student safety. Along with their pa- trolling through the city, the UMass Police Force holds seminars on student safety, offering advice on how to make oneself a less conspicuous victim.
The University Police Department publishes annual crime analysis reports, found on their web- site, covering the previous calendar year. Accord- ing to the Annual Security Report for 2012, there were 70 reported cases of violence on campus, the vast majority of them burglaries.
Lowell Police Department Captain Timothy Crowley is well versed in student safety as a strong percentage of attacks against students happen off-campus under their jurisdiction.
According to Crowley, things are getting better. “Crime overall in the city is down over last year and the year before,” he says.
Most attacks, Crowley says, are “crimes of opportunity” that are brief and difficult to pursue. In many cases, robberies happen because of a lack of common sense as, Crowley states, most car robberies happen with unlocked cars or in circumstances where attractive items are placed in plain view.
Interestingly enough, Crowley says, “Based on reports made in the past most attackers are non-students.”
Officer Crowley then continues to describe social media as a tool in helping to fight crime. Ac- cording to Crowley, a robbery took place where video was available and an arrest was made by 9 p.m. the same day thanks to the sharing of the video.
Yet not all situations, as many students know, can benefit from footage and the advantage of social media where thousands of eyes can be used to identify a perpetrator. Crowley’s biggest points of advice include staying in well-lit areas, avoid having electronic devices out and, possibly most important, to not walk alone.
Officer Jeff Connors, community resource officer for the University Police Department, has similar comments on the matter. “Walk in groups or pairs,” he says. “Don’t go out alone if you can help it.”
Connors offers a bit of perspective on how the UMass system as a whole keeps students safe. According to Connors, there are three to four cruisers on patrol twenty-four hours a day, which he believes allows for a quick response. On top of that, most shuttles operate until 2 a.m. to give students many opportunities not to walk around at night.
The responsibility of student safety, according to all the sources for this story, falls most squarely on the shoulders of the students themselves.
Rogers, whose attack last year left him unconvinced that anybody is truly safe on or off cam-
pus, still knows that it is solely his responsibility. His advice reflects the same points both the LPD and University Police offered: walk with friends, be aware of your surroundings and don’t go down side roads.
Reporting crimes is of utmost importance to the Lowell Police Department and University Po- lice in large part to alert students out and about on and off-campus.
Questions or comments on this story? Have your own story to tell? Contact the Author:
Alex Gentile Alexander_Gentile@student.uml.edu
Connector Editor-in-Chief Christopher Tran contributed to this report.
