After the tragic incident in the CII building last semester, the campus took note of the cooperation between RPI’s Department of Public Safety and the Troy Police Department. The two groups worked well together to lock down campus and ensure everyone’s safety. During the forum following the Virginia Tech tragedy, campus members were concerned with how the security on our own campus would be revamped to prevent an incident such as that. One of the main areas of improvement mentioned was this relationship between DPS and TPD, which was called into question during the beginning of this school year.
During the opening weeks of the semester, the Incident Blotter was riddled with reports of burglaries and robbery attempts on many RPI students in areas surrounding campus. The assailants would confront the students and demand anything of value—items such as cell phones, wallets, and iPods. The suspects would threaten to harm the victims, and in many cases showed a knife or acted out violently by kicking and punching. In one case, however, the victim claimed he had nothing of value and was left alone—from these actions, it is clear that the suspects were targeting people whom they assumed would have something of value but no means to defend themselves.
After weeks of these reports in the Blotter, the mood was very unsteady on campus; it was becoming increasingly dangerous to walk around at night. The more robberies that were reported, the more doubts there were that DPS and TPD were, indeed, working together more to protect the campus.
However, these doubts were laid to rest over the past few weeks, as the news shifted from yet another cell phone burglary to the apprehension of the suspects. In the October 3 issue of The Poly, we reported that one of them—believed to be the main attacker—was caught. The suspect was a 16-year-old resident of Troy, who was involved in numerous burglary attempts both on foot and on bicycle. Safety improvements cited include the increase of officers patrolling within and around campus who are both uniformed and plain-clothed. There were more eyes watching over campus and the immediate surroundings, and this week there were also two other teenage suspects apprehended in connection with the burglaries.
The efforts of the Department of Public Safety and the Troy Police Department to ensure safety on and around campus have vastly improved feelings of security. These efforts have not gone unnoticed and are greatly appreciated; the Blotter has now been cleared of robberies and returned to reports of cooking smoke. This does not mean, though, that people should be walking around alone at night—standard safety tips still apply.
