A blog-filled weekend

Just a quick update… I’ve been slacking a bit with my blogging so I’m going to really rev things up this weekend. I plan on going over some things that have happened in the last two weeks, talk about DPS Major Grant Williams who passed away the Friday after Thanksgiving, and leave you with some thoughts on safety abroad (since I’ll be in Madrid next semester) and safety on the home front (SU) for next semester.

Multimedia Project

In light of the above-average number of crimes SU students encountered earlier this semester, we tried to gauge how safe students feel after the incidents and now that they don’t seem to occur as often. To do so, we talked to random students, students with ties to the crime and a professor who lives off campus, then compiled their viewpoints into a podcast.

We spoke to (in order of appearance):

Brad Horn, a graduate student in the S.I. Newhouse School of
Public Communications whose house was broken into
Richard Champion: A brother of the ATO fraternity, the site of three
stabbings earlier in the semester
Roy Gutterman: A Newhouse professor who’s lived in the off-campus
community for several years
Kelly Peters: A Newhouse sophomore
Corey Custer: A junior in the Whitman School of Management
James Simmons: A senior in the College of Visual and Performing Arts
Liz Eney: A sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences

One more thing…

One more thing about our podcast… my group and I thought it would be really interesting to interview a couple of the many people who’ve been robbed this semester, but DPS will not (probably cannot) release their names.  This certainly didn’t hurt our project, but it would’ve added an interesting perspective if we did get a hold of them.

For my last news beat story, I am going to do a “semester in review” I think. For this, I will go back to my idea of getting DPS’ side of the story, and maybe be able to interview some of the robbery victims at this time if I find out who they are.

Multimedia project

My group and I are on a roll with our multimedia project. We wanted to reflect on this semester’s events in regards to public safety, so, we settled on a podcast. We went around and interviewed 8 people in total… four random people on Marshall Street, two guys at ATO- the fraternity where the stabbing occurred, one professor who lives off-campus near the university and someone who’s house was broken into and who lives three houses down from where someone was robbed at gunpoint.

The interviews gave us a broad range of perspective on how safe people feel this semester compared to last semester, and in the past month compared to the beginning of the year, as well as what they are doing differently, if anything, to keep themselves more safe.

Now we are in the process of editing the interviews. This is the hard part because a podcast can’t be too long (someone said 2-3 minutes is ideal) but we have a lot of good material to work with. Once we take only the most vital, interesting information from the interviews we will meet to put it all together.

It was really interesting to hear what the ATO brother had to say about the stabbing, and one explained how he felt about DPS’ response to the situation. He said that the fact the campus was not alerted right away was definitely a problem. Another explained that he was upstairs when it happened and got a text, but didn’t believe it until he went downstairs and saw for himself.

A really good point that the person we interviewed who had his house broken into was that, regardless of the crime, we can’t live in fear. When we are engulfed by fear we start to lose our faith in people, many of whom will never harm us, he said. I just thought this was nice to hear from someone who has been at the forefront of a dangerous, fearful situation, and to hear that his solution is to break free from the fear, “don’t be stupid” and trust most people.

I’m very excited for the finished podcast!

Some interesting background info.

Here are just some articles I found regarding the history of the controversy of MayFest at SU, but also about the days similar to it at other colleges, and why/why not it has caused public safety concerns in those places.

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2009/03/24/News/Mayfest.Safety.Issues.Spark.Debate-3680521-page2.shtml

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2009/03/02/News/University.Police.Plan.Safety.Measures.For.Mayfest-3654996.shtml

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2008/04/23/News/Police.No.Arrests.On.Mayfest-3342391.shtml

Dolphy Day at LeMoyne: No articles about safety concerns, but a university-recognized day off for students to have fun.  http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/lemoyne_college_celebrates_dol.html, http://www.lemoyne.edu/ProspectiveStudents/StudentBlogs/tabid/849/EntryID/109/Default.aspx

Slope Day at Cornell: A day dedicated to students before finals… in 1996 mudslides resulted in multiple injuries, and there have been concerns over the large amount of underage drinking but the tradition continues… (and SU can’t even continue the tradition after there have been no major incidents): http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/96/5.9.96/slopeday.html, http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/4.22.04/Slope_Day_plans.html, http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/cu_facts/read_more.cfm?id=31

This week’s story dilemma

While I’m still working on the ‘DPS side of the story’ story, it won’t be ready for Friday because I want it to be well-developed. Therefore, I’m going to write a different story for Friday. Though I made this decision two days before it is due I am confident I’ll be able to write a stronger story on a smaller topic. I’m either going to write about DPS’ thoughts on MayFest, and the idea that students want a day off for themselves, or the rape defense program that DPS offers. My first choice is definitely the MayFest topic, but I need to see if they’ll talk about on the subject, which I’m not 100 percent positive they will. I am calling Callisto in about in a hour so I’ll find out then. This topic would also be good because there is a band of students thinking about participating in a ‘make-shift’ MayFest this Friday.  This is a horrible idea and will not be successful in my opinion, especially if they want to be respected and have their voices heard  by administration about the actual MayFest in the Spring, but I still think it might be important to get DPS’ opinion on what their job will be if this does happen.

New story idea

I had some trouble thinking of a new DPS beat story, not because there are limited options, but because I couldn’t think of a truly interesting topic to write about that would draw students in…. I feel like students need a break from all the stories about what DPS is doing to keep the campus safe in light of increased criminal activity on campus.

So I asked around and one of my friends came up with the really good idea of telling “DPS’ side of the story.” The recent influx of negative news headlines have insinuated to the student body that perhaps DPS isn’t doing a good enough job, which maybe they’re not, but I think it’d be really interesting to hear about the strain they’ve been put under in light of recent situations. This story would involve interviewing multiple officers, patrol people, etc. And I want to start with questions such as, “What is the first thing that came into your head when you received the call about the ATO stabbing?” or “When you got news of the seventh robbery, what went through your head?”

From there, I think I’d like to investigate the limited power that DPS truly does have when it comes to “solving” the problems, and the bigger issues, specifically funding and resources that they’re lacking.

I think this story would be intriguing mainly because people love hearing about personal, kind of “behind the scenes” stories. There is no hard news involved in the story, but as an enterprise story it would use the news peg of all of the recent unfortunate scenarios that DPS has responded to.

Robberies linked?

As of now, it is still unclear whether the robberies are linked or not. But there are endless questions about WHY so many bad incidents have happened in such a short time span this year. 

Personally, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I also don’t think the same person/people have been responsible. But I do think that with all the publicity each robbery recieves it is also sending a message to the criminals… that it’s happened, hasn’t been solved, and maybe they can get away with it too. Yes, this is a deranged message, but I wouldn’t exactly call these criminals morally conscience human beings either. And if you are looking to rob someone and see that 5 different people have gotten away with it in a certain location, why not try the same one?

I understand it probably sounds ridiculous that I’m posting my anticipated logic of a criminal but I’m simply looking for some reasoning behind the trend, and that’s what I came up with. Of course, I’m not suggesting that each incident doesn’t receive the necessary press to make it available to the public because it absolutely does.

Such a complicated situation…

Students staying safe

Along with the number of DPS officers on duty, the number of robberies has also increased. And though we can spend our days wondering what else DPS could be doing to solve this problem it is time now to focus on the victims: the students. In a perfect world, DPS patrol would line the streets and be there every time a robbery occurred to either prevent it or arrest the criminal on the scene. This is never going to happen. So lets focus on what can happen. It has come to a point where students MUST be smarter. Is it unfortunate that every single student should walk around in a constantly cautious manner while extremely aware of their surroundings? Yes, it’s not ideal, but it’s also the only answer we can offer in light of current events. No more texting while walking. No more earphones in the ears. No more talking on the phone. No more walking slowly to your destination. Students need to focus on their destination and eliminate every single sort of distraction method on their way there. A student was robbed outside Shaw Hall. The excuse that all the robberies take place off campus is no longer prevalent. That same student was texting. For the 30 seconds he was looking down, someone else was looking for the perfect time to rob him, and took full advantage of those 30 seconds.

I would have never thought that I was actually jepoardizing my safety by answering a quick text alone at night on campus, but that is what this has come to. We must accept that fact, and be as proactive as possible.

“These days,” when walking at night, I walk with my cell phone in my hand, with DPS’ number on the screen just so that in the case of an emergency I can quickly press send.  I can only hope at this point that all students, regardless of age, gender, etc. realize that they are not the exception, and could even be the next victim if they don’t take their safety into their own hands.

Outreach to Greek houses

DPS officers are making the rounds to Greek houses on campus to talk to them about safety, and the recent stabbing and robberies. 

As a member of Alpha Xi Delta sorority I heard Sgt. Keith DiBello talk to us about what we need to do to stay safe, and he answered a lot of questions.

I think this was a nice effort on DPS’ part as it shows they are increasing their efforts to inform students about recent situations. Some students have criticized DPS’ efforts about informing the student body in a timely manner, and keeping important information private, but this wasn’t so on Sunday night DiBello was very open and honest.

DiBello explained that they wanted to talk to Greek houses, especially since the stabbing at Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, because the streets with Greek houses see the most traffic on dark weekend nights. DiBello was very nice, and made it extremely clear that he is available for questions, comments and concerns 24/7.