Within the last week, there have been two assaults on Franklin and Marshall’s campus. On October 26^th, a male student was assaulted and his backpack was stolen in the area of Hackman-Kaufman. On November 1^st, a female student was physically assaulted in the Williamson lot. The suspects in both events were described as juvenile African-American males wearing dark hooded-sweatshirts. The victims received minor injuries, and both scenarios are still under investigation.

Both incidents share issues that immediately need to be addressed for the safety and reputation of students at F&M. The first problem is the lack of awareness and response by Public Safety officers. To my knowledge and personal vendettas, Public Safety is on call twenty-four hours a day. They raid social scenes at any given time during the night, and constantly lurk around campus via bicycle or car. Where were they during these incidents? It only seems logical that after the first incident campus patrol would have intensified to some degree. It baffles me that such an assault could happen so openly in the middle of campus without an officer there for intervention. The second mishap occurred during the night of Halloween, a time when officers should patrol the entirety of campus due to the presumption of more festivities occurring than the normal Saturday night. Instead, I saw a number of Public Safety cars and officers stationed on the corner of College Avenue and West Frederick Street. Why are so many at the same location? It makes me wonder…

To be clear, this is not an attempt to scrutinize the work ethic of the Public Safety Department. In no way do I think officers are purposely allowing these assaults to happen. But, at the same time, I expect them to be aware of possible dangers especially on the night of Halloween. I express these thoughts because these assaults can potentially happen to anyone. Precautions should be augmented into nightly routines, more so because of previous happenings, and our open campus environment. In no way should people feel scared to walk from one academic building to another on F&M’s campus with around-the-clock patrol. That is a fear that students should not have to feel. We admit our safety department to the right of bearing arms, giving them full autonomy over our campus safety. Yet, assaults occur in the middle of campus, twice within the same week. It’s funny how that works.

The second issue I have is the description of the suspects. The same description was used in both incidents, juvenile African-American males with dark hooded-sweatshirts. Whether the description is true or not is beyond my concern. What bothers me is the face I now hold on F&M’s campus. Minorities on campus already endure hardship, and any dispute of that is due to ignorance and stupor. Fear has now spread through campus, fear of possible assault by an African-American male. Now think how that makes us minorities feel? We don’t want violence anymore than the rest, but now we are forced to take on another stigma. Now we are possible suspects. We can only hope that our campus surveillance system can make sense of this all. Both incidents occurred in two very populated areas of campus, so if there is no footage to reassure our safety we have a very big problem.