Students Lose Confidence in Campus Safety at Temple University

By Brittany Loeffler on October 26, 2016

It’s been a rough week for Philadelphia’s Temple University and their campus safety program. Located just two miles north of City Hall, muggings, robberies, and vandalism is nothing new to the students who choose to attend the university.

But on Friday, October 21 a group of almost 200 adolescents ranging from middle to high school attacked multiple students and a police officer in mob-style violence.

By Highway Patrol Images (Code 3 combination LED & rotating beacons) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Organized Attacks

After a Temple football game on Friday night, a group of juveniles could be seen gathering outside of a shopping strip on Broad Street around 7:30 p.m. After breaking into smaller groups of 20-30, they ran through the streets attacking multiple students.

As many as five students were grabbed, punched, kicked, and robbed by the teens, leaving them with bruises and cuts. According to NBC 10, one officer was pulled off of her bike and while trying to arrest a 15-year-old boy. One unidentified student told the student-run website, The Tab, that “My boyfriend ran and got away but the second I tried to run, they grabbed me by my hair and started beating my head and back.”

The attacks lasted for two hours between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.

TU Alert and Notifications

TU Alert sent on October 21st

With Temple’s implemented notification service, students will receive both a text and email about dangerous occurrences both on and off campus. However, it is known for not reporting every incident that takes place to students.

In the face of Friday’s event, the TU Alert was sent out at 9:26 p.m., hours after the children had already congregated. Students are extremely upset about the late notice, especially because if it had been received earlier, they would have been more aware of what was going on in the area.

Two days after the incident Temple University sent out a formal email explaining the weekend’s events while encouraging students to utilize their Walking Escort Program and shuttle bus program, Flight. They also promised to increase police activity in the area on the weekends.

Slacking Security

In an article written for The Tab earlier last week, Alyssa Mancuso, a Freshman at the university conducted an experiment to see how many academic buildings she could enter on campus by showing a red Target gift card instead of her Temple ID. Security guards, provided by AlliedBarton, are stationed at the entrance of each building and asked to examine the IDs of each student and faculty member upon entering.

To her surprise, she was able to enter 13 buildings without being questioned.

“How safe are we if theoretically anyone could get into the same buildings that Temple claims only students and faculty have exclusive access to?” she writes. “Because right now, I’m not feeling very secure.”

Is Temple Doing Enough?

The events of this last week have raised many concerns and questions from parents, students, and the community. Is Temple University doing enough to protect their students? As seen from Friday’s events, the alert system is not as reliable as some would like.

Yes, Temple advises students to utilize other options to arrive home safely, but if all 28,600 of their undergrad students were to ask for security to walk them home or jump on a shuttle bus, would they still be as effective? Being aware of your surroundings and walking in groups obviously is not enough to keep us safe anymore.

So, Temple University, will you start taking more preventative measures to keep your students safe instead of waiting for instances to take place where people get hurt to put a solution in place?

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