A STRING of off-Grounds robberies and other crimes in recent weeks prompted a student safety forum last Tuesday, where University and Charlottesville police officers addressed the crowd about the dangers that students face and what they could do to minimize the risks. Though the forum played an integral part of expanding public knowledge about the larger city environment, the level of ignorance on the subject means the student body must take more proactive steps towards understanding and dealing with daily threats to our safety.
The police officers covered some basic safety issues and told people what they could do toreduce the opportunity for a crime, knowledge that most people lack. They generally advised people to not walk in isolated areas, to try to walk in groups whenever possible, and to choose well-lighted zones. The police also warned students that many crimes occurred around railroad tracks, further informing students that crossing those tracks is illegal. When students were asked how many of them had crossed railroad tracks, nearly every hand went up. The cops are worried about the tracks because of predators who hang around those areas and scout potential victims, not because someone might get hit by a train, which would be an extremely rare event.
Other advice involved everything from how to deal with stolen possessions to how to handle a robbery situation. Police recommended that students avoid confrontation with a robber and comply to her or his demands, the worry being that physical altercations could lead to severe injuries, or your robber could even have a gun. A University police officer explained that larceny was the most common crime on Grounds and urged students to be extra mindful about prized personal belongings such as iPods and cell phones.
A major theme of the forum was to implant the idea upon students that suspicious activity should be reported immediately, which people are often hesitant to do because of uncertainty about a situation. A University police officer commented, "We [the police] would much rather be called and not needed rather than needed and not called." Charlottesville police officials urged people to observe the clothes and other characteristics of suspicious individuals that might be useful in tracking them down after a crime has been committed, or in preventing a crime altogether. A University security spokesperson also warned that "we are not a closed community" and that we should understand the larger environment to help prevent crimes.
Forums about student safety such as this one are critical toward improving education and raising awareness of threats we face as a community, but students must also become more involved in learning about what they can do to ensure their safety. Given the relevance of the issue, the forum was only lightly attended by the student body, perhaps an indirect but still unhealthy sign that some of this information is not trickling through. People still cross the tracks in high numbers -- they'll do it this weekend when they go party, next weekend, and the weekend after that, oblivious to the fact that they're breaking the law and, more importantly, oblivious to some disturbing and shady characters waiting for a victim.
The question-and-answer session also revealed some misunderstandings among students. One person asked why SafeRide did not pick up at the Corner, but an officer reported that SafeRide does pick up at the Corner -- in fact, it picks up students in all areas within a mile of Newcomb. Students also questioned SafeRide's policy of not picking up drunken individuals -- the police explained that they had liability concerns: Drunk individuals sometimes vomit in the car (or on the driver) and could be a safety risk to fellow riders.
The decisions that we students make when faced with dangerous situations have serious consequences. It's very important that we know what options are available to us and how to intelligently select between them. Remaining unaware of what actions to take can only hurt when people are confronted with perilous situations.
Erald Kolasi's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at ekolasi@cavalierdaily.com.
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