WVU campus crime on rise?

Students should be responsible, independent and proactive

via The Daily Athenaeum

By Denita Jones

When choosing a college, many incoming freshmen don’t consider a low campus crime rate a priority.

However, with the recent spike of crime on the campus of West Virginia University, it makes one wonder if it will affect how potential students will view our college.

The University Police Department takes pride in sustaining one of the lowest campus crime rates.

In the face of this surge in crime, I hold onto that fact in hopes that these past few months will just been seen as a coincidence.

After the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and the death of University of Connecticut’s Jasper Howard this year, providing a safe learning environment seems as if it’s becoming a harder task to uphold.

In the past few weeks, the University has reported a sexual occurrence in Lyon Tower and a robbery outside Arnold Hall.

No one can get past what happened to Ryan Diviney at the Willey Street Dairy Mart a couple weekends ago.

These events follow a stabbing on Grant Avenue and shots fired that went into the side of Summit Hall.

These crimes make me wary of walking the streets late at night.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Education reported University police violated the Clery Act in the past.

According to The Charleston Gazette, the University is looking at fines for mislabeling, under-reporting and failing to include crimes in the 2001 and 2002 Clery Reports.

The University police do their job.

They have systems such as the emergency telephones placed around campus as well as the emergency text alerts we receive when a crime is reported.

However, what we’ve seen is that the telephones are mainly subject to false reports, and the text alerts can be unreliable.

Getting students to be more proactive with their safety should take precedence over possession of a controlled substance or underage consumption citations, which is what usually what fills up the University incident reports.

On the University police Web site I found posters with proactive information, such as a checklist for violence prevention, that I’ve never seen before on campus.

This is unfathomable.

The Morgantown Police Department, as well as friends and family members, have been urging those who witnessed the altercation on Willey Street that put Ryan Diviney in the Intensive Care Unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital to come forward with information.

Though I’m not privy to this situation, nothing has come out regarding anyone with information about the thugs who sought to beat a young man within inches of his death.

The response should have been overwhelming.

According to The Dominion Post, there is video of several witnesses during the fight that broke out near the Dairy Mart.

Specifically, two females fled the scene along with other unknown bystanders.

Why haven’t these witnesses come forward?

If you have and the public just hasn’t been made aware, I commend your efforts in seeking a safer community for all of us.

If you haven’t: How you can live with yourself?

How you can get up every morning knowing that Ryan is lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life?

His life and his family’s lives are put on hold while his assailants walk the streets.

Be responsible.

Look after your belongings. Lock your doors.

If you see someone being pummeled by a large group of guys, call the police.

If you witness a violent crime, volunteer information.

We need to depend on ourselves to take preventative steps and keep this campus and community safer for everyone.