Our campus vicinity has not been the safest place in the past few months. Toward the end of last semester, we were hit by a crime wave, with an abnormal number of instances of sexual assault and robbery. According to WRAL, in the beginning of the summer in May at the Wolf Creek Apartments, three people broke into a student’s apartment, resulting in a gunshot wound to the resident’s leg during the attempted robbery. Most recently, as reported by the News & Observer, on Aug. 10, also at Wolf Creek, a resident shot and killed an armed intruder.
Students were notified about the on-campus events that occurred at the end of last semester via WolfAlert — the University’s official method of emergency notification and communication. The Campus Police also increased their presence on campus, especially after dark. The paint on the lights of the Free Expression Tunnel was removed to make it more bright. However, matters could improve further when it comes to off-campus safety, as apparent from the two Wolf Creek incidences during the summer. A start, we believe, could be having WolfAlerts for locations, such as the Wolf Creek Apartments, that are heavily populated by students but aren’t on University property.
Right now, WolfAlerts only report (attempted) crimes that occur on University-owned property. For example, in July, ABC Eyewitness News covered a burglary at the Western Manor apartment complex that was reported as a WolfAlert.
However, it would make as much sense for WolfAlerts to cover places around the University that aren’t owned by the University, which students predominantly visit or live in — if it wouldn’t make more sense, seeing that the security mechanisms in place on campus do not exist off campus. Regardless of whether it would be outside the Campus Police’s jurisdiction, we see no reason why WolfAlerts can’t be made for all areas that are frequented or resided in by students. This simple step, for example, would have notified the residents of Wolf Creek that someone had been killed in their apartment complex, or that someone was hospitalized because of a break-in — information whose absence luckily led to no other misfortunes, though this may not always be the case in the future.
