In the past two weeks, students have received several Carolina Alerts about dangerous people roaming campus. 

While it is nice to know that these alerts work, it is disheartening to get the follow up text message that goes along the lines of, "Police have not found a suspect matching the description." Just the other night, three female students were robbed at gunpoint on campus. 

Instead of protecting our campus, home to 21,480 undergraduate students (2013 enrollment), the campus and city police spend their nights raiding bars and writing Minor in Possession tickets to underage drinkers. 

Last October, a student was hit by a stray bullet while waiting for a taxi. She was an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bad situation because no one cared that a large group of people were congregating outside of the gas station. 

Although police presence has increased, I believe that it has increased in the wrong way. The violence on campus and in Five Points is not caused by drunk 20-somethings; by raiding bars, the police force is allocating their resources in the wrong way. The first thing police should be focusing on in Five Points is excessive loitering. I am uncomfortable when I walk from the fountain to Birddog and Cover 3, but I feel safe the second I walk through those doors. When I'm headed in for the night, but want a milkshake for the road, I feel uncomfortable when I walk past the Rite Aid and the Food Lion to get to Cook-Out. 

One of the most frightening alerts that students received was about an armed robbery on campus. A student was approached at gun point by a man on the Horseshoe who demanded his money. When he didn't have any, the man followed him, gun in hand, back to his dorm to rob him there. Also, this past week three victims were walking on the 1800 block of Greene Street and were approached by three men demanding their belongings, two of which had guns. The most frightening part of this was that no Carolina Alert was sent out after so no students out that night had any idea about the incident.

The Horseshoe is the center of campus. It should be guarded at night because people use it as a path to get home from Greek Village after a sorority function, from the Library after a late night of studying, and from Russell House after a football game. It is not okay that something like that happened in the middle of campus. Yes, there are call boxes, but I wouldn't even think about pressing one if someone was pointing a gun to my back.

The police need to focus their energy on making people feel comfortable walking around in Five Points after dark. They need to make sure that students can get home safely after a night downtown, a night studying, or after a night when you and your girlfriends walk to Waffle House because you are craving an all-star combo.

Underage drinkers should be addressed once Five Points is safe. But, for now, police need to focus on keeping campus safe, since a human life is more important than a bar admitting a 20 year old.