Campus safety

Quiz: if you were a person who wanted to run around with a gun robbing people, what type of person would you go after? Hint: people with money. Another hint: students don't have money.

Apparently some people haven't figured this out yet.

I make light of a subject that is actually very serious. (Although, honestly, I'm baffled.) On the subject of campus safety (or, recently, the lack of in my neck of the woods), I give two cases.

First, in the last few weeks there have been several thefts in my building (RLM) here at UT. The Cat Burgler didn't steal anything of substantial monetary value (e.g., computers); they were mostly petty thefts (like Kurtis had his Darth Tater stolen). After a few times, it was realized that the suspect was entering people's offices through the ceiling. Crazy! (Did he think he was in a James Bond movie? Or Mission Impossible?) They were able to catch that guy finally, but told us to still exercise caution.

Second, and much more serious. Last week there was an armed robbery in RLM. The week or so before that, there was an armed robbery in the music building (where my friend Bridgid works). Yesterday we got an email that there was another armed robbery on Monday evening, near a building about 2 blocks south of my building. This is getting ridiculous. (Not to mention alarming.)

I heard about the robbery in my building the day after it happened. I came in and checked my email, and a fellow grad student had sent out an email around 7:30pm the night before basically saying, "If you're still in the building, be careful. I just left and it's surrounded by police." Similarly, around 11:00pm another grad student in my research group sent out an email to the research group saying, "Sorry I didn't get this draft of the paper emailed out to you earlier, but when I went back to RLM tonight it was surrounded by police and I couldn't get in until later." There was an article about it in The Daily Texan (UT's student newspaper) that had a short blurb and this photo:

The funny thing is, this is not the robber, but rather this is another of my fellow astronomy graduate students - in the process of evacuating the building as the police directed - but the picture convinces one otherwise. His officemates were on top of this, and within minutes of its being published, printed out a large copy of this picture and hung it on the office door.

This brings me back to the question I posed at the beginning of this post: if you wanted to go through with the hassle of armed robbery, who would you rob? Apparently Mr. Armed Robber thinks robbing grad students is profitable in some way. I read a report not long after the robbery in RLM that explained that the victim was a grad student; Mr. A.R. demanded money, so he complied (I'd probably do the same), giving him all the money he had in his wallet: about 3 bucks. Seriously. He's obviously not getting large sums of money as a result of his crimes.

They still haven't caught this guy (the description in all three instances is the same), but hopefully they will soon. The most recent email said that all 3 victims have been Asian students. I don't know if the authorities think Mr. A.R. has it out for Asians, or if they're just telling us that for our information.

There's been a flurry of department emails as there have been meetings with the college and police and whoever else to make our lives safer. I read an article today in The Daily Texan about possible upgrades in security that are being discussed for my building. Everything from requiring a card swipe to enter to putting an armed police officer at the entrance. After one meeting, everyone in our department received an email asking us to be aware of these main 5 points:

1. Key control
2. Do not work alone, work in pairs if staying after hours.
3. When working after the normal 8-5 workday, keep your doors shut and locked.
4. Do not leave your offices or campus by yourself.
5. Be proactive, ask people that you don't know if you can assist them.

Some of these ideas sound very good in theory, but aren't so easy in practice. (Like working in pairs after hours, considering "after hours" starts at 5:00 and grad students tend to work later than that, since I know very few that get in at 8:00.) In spirit of this, the following sign now hangs on the inside of the computer lab door:

Well, the point is, I hope they catch this crazy man soon.

Another article I read mentioned that UTPD is doing all they can, but reminded us that they can't be everywhere, as there's only a limited number of them, and that we are their eyes and ears and should report anything suspicious, blah, blah, blah. What I think they should do is put the fleet of attendants that issue the parking tickets on campus on the case. Nothing gets past those guys. And I mean nothing. There's no escaping them. The guy would be toast.

In the meantime (since I think my mom reads my blog) I'll mention how I'm being extra careful, not working alone too late, and not walking around campus alone after dark. And my office is like a fortress. So I'm keeping myself safe.