How safe are we? Waking up Tuesday morning to the news of yet another shooting near Fresno State led to a serious contemplation of our safety. Monday̢۪s incident marks the third shooting near campus this year, and as a student to the university and a resident in the nearby community, I̢۪m becoming increasingly concerned.
Obviously sharing jurisdiction with the Fresno Police Department (FPD), the University Police Department’s (UPD) “primary jurisdictionâ€Â is a one-mile radius from Fresno State property, as listed on their Web site. As such, it would be the logical assumption that this area would be one of the safest in Fresno.
Yet, here we are again— five months into the year, three potentially threatening incidents.
This recent violence around campus made me flashback to the end of my senior year in high school. “Well, don’t get shot.â€Â That was the half-joking reply I always received from my classmates whenever mentioning Fresno State as my college choice. I honestly didn’t understand the blunt reference to violence.
At the time, I was completely oblivious to the number of people that considered Fresno as the San Joaquin Valley̢۪s thuggin̢۪ metropolis.
So through the end of high school, I brushed off the negative comments as ill repute born out of the inflation of scattered incidents. And even when already living in Fresno, I still felt confident in my safety from what is supposed to be the double whammy of the UPD̢۪s and FPD̢۪s patrols.
But flashing back to real time, there seems to be a breakdown of efficiency somewhere. According to Amy Armstrong, the UPD’s Public Information Officer, UPD officers “always are actively patrollingâ€Â their jurisdiction, making the department “very aware of what’s happening on the perimeter of our campus so that we can protect our campus.â€Â
But if that is the case, why did it take UPD 19 hours to notify students about Monday’s shooting? Isn’t notifying campus community of potential safety threats part of the reason the UPD wants to be “awareâ€Â of incidents around campus?
According to the UPD, the shooting took place about 10 p.m. on Recreation Avenue, located across from Save Mart Center, between Woodrow and Chestnut Avenues. At this time, the nearby Student Rec Center still had an entire hour of being fully operational. Considering the proximity of the shooting to the center and its location within UPD’s “primary jurisdiction,â€Â it should have been deemed essential to immediately notify students through the university’s various communication methods.
Whether gang or other non-campus related criminal activity is to blame, it is the responsibility of the FPD, along with UPD, to provide adequate measures to ensure our safety. We should be able to be confident in the services provided by these two agencies and of their ability to notify students of any potential threat. But with a third shooting, I am not so sure that is the case.
From their constant patrols at night around Dog House Grill and the Red Wave Inn, it is clear that both departments acknowledge drunk driving as a threat to public safety and in that way, send students, and all in the area, a clear message of active enforcement of DUI laws. Even more, just try having a party in the one-mile radius from campus, and see how quickly it gets shut down.
But what will it take so both police agencies focus on a different kind of threat to our safety and take a deeper look into gang activity surrounding Fresno State? Will it take the injury of an uninvolved bystander from a stray bullet or missed target to call them to action?
As the last couple of months are showing, violence around campus may not be an inflated notoriety, but could be an unfortunate reality. Let̢۪s just hope it is a reality that both departments will work to change.
jennifer • Aug 11, 2009 at 1:28 pm
oh and P.S I would of loved to have majored in journalism , but fresno state doesn’t offer all the classes at night so I would of never been able to graduate. I also would of loved to have written for the collegian, but again night students don’t have those priveledges.
jennifer • Aug 11, 2009 at 8:28 pm
oh and P.S I would of loved to have majored in journalism , but fresno state doesn’t offer all the classes at night so I would of never been able to graduate. I also would of loved to have written for the collegian, but again night students don’t have those priveledges.
jennifer • Aug 11, 2009 at 1:24 pm
One thing I don’t like is night security on campus. As a night student, I feel we are often not treated the same as day students. At night it is dark and there is little lighting on campus and no security ever seen. At F.C.C for example they have police officers on foot practically every where you turn at night, and they have police patroling like crazy in those parking lots. At state however it is a different story. Why can’t state be set up more like Fresno City at night to help with the safety. Also off topic , but going back to what I said about night students not being treated the same as day students, an example of this would be having to pay a student health fee, when the health center closes before we are ever even on campus. Having a library we can’t use because it is closed by the time we get out of class at night. Having to pay student union fees when we can’t even use the student union because again it is closed. How about the fact that night classes if you look in the class schedule start at 4pm. That is not night time, and night students need more classes offered to them that start when they get off work. How about the fact that we can’t go to games or activities because the are often held when we are in class. We are students to and should not be looked at as second class just because we are night students. It is time for night students to get together and demand fair treatment, and stop allowing fresno state to discriminate against us. We pay our fees just like anyone else, but yet we get the short end of the stick on safety , on classes, on everything.
jennifer • Aug 11, 2009 at 8:24 pm
One thing I don’t like is night security on campus. As a night student, I feel we are often not treated the same as day students. At night it is dark and there is little lighting on campus and no security ever seen. At F.C.C for example they have police officers on foot practically every where you turn at night, and they have police patroling like crazy in those parking lots. At state however it is a different story. Why can’t state be set up more like Fresno City at night to help with the safety. Also off topic , but going back to what I said about night students not being treated the same as day students, an example of this would be having to pay a student health fee, when the health center closes before we are ever even on campus. Having a library we can’t use because it is closed by the time we get out of class at night. Having to pay student union fees when we can’t even use the student union because again it is closed. How about the fact that night classes if you look in the class schedule start at 4pm. That is not night time, and night students need more classes offered to them that start when they get off work. How about the fact that we can’t go to games or activities because the are often held when we are in class. We are students to and should not be looked at as second class just because we are night students. It is time for night students to get together and demand fair treatment, and stop allowing fresno state to discriminate against us. We pay our fees just like anyone else, but yet we get the short end of the stick on safety , on classes, on everything.
dw • May 14, 2009 at 8:44 am
Keeping the violence OFF campus IS an improvement!
During the 1990s, the violence came on campus regularly. For instance, there was the running gunfight that started in the USU bowling alley. Two opposing street gang factions ran into one another in the USU, words were exchanged, and the guns came out. As campus police arrived, the gun battle was moving past the memorial fountain towards Lot D. And, this was not the first nor last incident at the USU. Eventually, the lower part of the building was closed to the public on the weekend–one had to show university ID to get in.
Then, there was the drive-by shooting over at the dorms, targeting a member of the man’s basketball team who reportedly hadn’t paid his drug dealer. Speaking of the dorms, for awhile, some dormies were terrorizing other dormies. Turned out, these perps were gang members back home.
And then there were the hip hop dances over at the SSU. One night, the campus cops took down a known drug dealer who had a MAC-9 in his car–fully automatic weapon. At another dance, members of a crowd tried to take a campus officer’s handgun away from the officer to kill her. Other officers beat the crap out of the guy who actually had the pistol half-way out of the holster.
The off-campus violence was even more intense. I was first on-scene to a triple murder over in Sin City. Three bodies in the middle of San Bruno Avenue, shot to pieces with automatic weapons.
dw • May 14, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Keeping the violence OFF campus IS an improvement!
During the 1990s, the violence came on campus regularly. For instance, there was the running gunfight that started in the USU bowling alley. Two opposing street gang factions ran into one another in the USU, words were exchanged, and the guns came out. As campus police arrived, the gun battle was moving past the memorial fountain towards Lot D. And, this was not the first nor last incident at the USU. Eventually, the lower part of the building was closed to the public on the weekend–one had to show university ID to get in.
Then, there was the drive-by shooting over at the dorms, targeting a member of the man’s basketball team who reportedly hadn’t paid his drug dealer. Speaking of the dorms, for awhile, some dormies were terrorizing other dormies. Turned out, these perps were gang members back home.
And then there were the hip hop dances over at the SSU. One night, the campus cops took down a known drug dealer who had a MAC-9 in his car–fully automatic weapon. At another dance, members of a crowd tried to take a campus officer’s handgun away from the officer to kill her. Other officers beat the crap out of the guy who actually had the pistol half-way out of the holster.
The off-campus violence was even more intense. I was first on-scene to a triple murder over in Sin City. Three bodies in the middle of San Bruno Avenue, shot to pieces with automatic weapons.
Long Live Barack • May 13, 2009 at 9:30 pm
we’re nearly pulling in Virginia Tech numbers—-the Hoakies have nothing on the Bulldogs!!!
Long Live Barack • May 14, 2009 at 4:30 am
we’re nearly pulling in Virginia Tech numbers—-the Hoakies have nothing on the Bulldogs!!!