When College of Business Administration senior Becca Volk moved into Mashuda Hall two years ago, she never anticipated becoming a victim of a crime.
At approximately 11 p.m. on the Sunday before classes resumed for the 2006-’07 school year, Volk and a friend embarked on what was supposed to be a relaxing walk through the neighborhood. While traveling north on 19th Street, Volk said neither of them thought anything about the young man walking toward them — until he drew his gun.
According to Volk, the man grabbed both her friend’s and her wrists and pulled them out of sight of Wisconsin Avenue traffic to stairs leading to a parking lot behind Mashuda.
“He was only 16 years old and 10 million times more scared than we were,” Volk said. After stealing both students’ cell phones and her friend’s wallet, Volk said the man took off running down 19th Street.
Volk and her friend ran as well — straight to the Mashuda lobby.
“We were crying and screaming, and the (desk receptionist) at Mashuda actually couldn’t get through to 911,” Volk said.
The desk receptionist finally called the Department of Public Safety, and Volk remembers officers responding within approximately two minutes and detaining the suspect about one minute after that.
“I am like the hugest advocate of Public Safety,” Volk said. “It was just an unbelievable response.”
When Volk called her family to inform them of the robbery, Volk said her mother referred to the incident as “a blessing in disguise.” While initially upset by that reaction, Volk has come to understand how the crime continues to positively impact her actions more than two years later.
“I’m not scared, just more aware,” Volk said. “It’s unbelievable, because when that kid was walking toward me it didn’t even register, but now I’m aware of exactly who surrounds me.”
Even with reported campus crime during the 2008 fall semester down 27 percent from the fall semester of 2007, Associate Director of DPS Capt. Russ Shaw said maintaining a sense of awareness is just as important as ever.
“Unfortunately, it’s human nature that people always become more complacent,” Shaw said. “Especially (students) from a big city who are used to the noise and used to the fact that they know there is crime in a big city.”
Kim Sheffield, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, said she thinks her experience living in the city limits of Chicago has a significant impact on how she approaches safety while at Marquette.
“It would be safe to say that the Marquette campus is much more secure and benign in comparison to my immediate neighborhood in Chicago’s Logan Square,” Sheffield said. “I’ve found the homeless to be far more aggressive in my area, and their constant presence and persistence seems to keep me fairly alert and cautious.”
Since Sheffield views the Marquette campus as relatively safe compared to her home neighborhood, she said safety concerns often take a backseat. Sheffield said she never takes LIMO vans, which provide free student transportation within DPS patrol boundaries.
“If I can walk to my destination in less time that it would take to call, wait, cram into a van, lap campus four times narrowly missing the destination each time, then for sheer reasons of efficiency, I walk,” she said.
Unlike Sheffield, other students come to Marquette with no experience living in a city environment.
Ryan Glazier, a freshman in the College of Business Administration, said coming to Milwaukee from his hometown of Lemont, Ill., a wealthy, unincorporated suburb of Chicago, was a significant change.
Lemont’s “pretty much the epitome of small-town America,” Glazier said. “Our version of crime comes down to kids in a truck playing mailbox baseball.”
Glazier said he was shocked to hear about certain criminal activity on campus, pointing specifically to the Sept. 21 incident in which a 19-year-old man not affiliated with Marquette pulled a gun on four Marquette students in front of Murphy’s Irish Pub, 1615 W. Wells St.
“In all my years in Lemont I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone being killed, shot, stabbed, anything crazy like that,” Glazier said. Even so, Glazier said he’s confident in his ability to handle himself if confronted and has never felt truly unsafe walking around campus.
According to Megan Stroshine, assistant professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, attitudes such as Sheffield’s and Glazier’s are common.
“Young adults tend to feel quite invincible,” Stroshine said in an e-mail. “They are the least likely to fear crime, although we know from official statistics that they are the most likely to fall victim to crime. There is a real disjuncture between their perceived and actual risk of crime.”
Stroshine also noted that an individual’s upbringing plays a significant role in his or her awareness level. Sheffield, whose Chicago home has a security system, locked gate and buzzer system, said she thinks she is more cognizant of her surroundings than someone like Glazier who grew up in a suburban environment.
“I realize I may be an easy target for an attacker, as I’m all of about five feet tall,” Sheffield said. “But if you’re like me … you’re probably more likely to be locking your doors and be particularly aware of unsavory characters while walking at night. It’s just what you’re used to, frankly.”
But students from small communities aren’t the only ones who have to adjust to the idea of urban living.
Mike Simo, the deputy chief of police in the field operations unit for Addison, Ill., said he originally had concerns sending his daughter Becky, now a senior in the College of Communication, to Marquette. According to Simo, Addison is a town of approximately 36,000 people that has an “active” police department but only sees about one or two violent crimes, such as armed robberies or murders, each year.
“So compared to Milwaukee, not very much at all,” Simo said. “And I had heard some stories about the neighborhoods surrounding campus (in the past) that they were pretty rough.”
But when Simo visited Marquette for himself, he said it didn’t seem to be that way. As a parent and a deputy chief of police, Simo said he continues to have a positive perception of DPS and its services.
“Naturally, everyone’s concerned, especially when you send your daughter to college in a big city,” said Simo, who has another daughter at Loyola University Chicago. “But as a parent, I’m confident in (DPS’s) ability.”
Shaw said DPS is always looking to improve its services, pointing to the recent success of the LIMO Express shuttles, which run in two continuous loops — one on Wells Street and Wisconsin Avenue, and another on Wisconsin and Kilbourn Avenues. According to Shaw, overall LIMO and LIMO Express ridership increased by 25,000 individual rides from 2007-’08.
“Those numbers certainly tell us that people are trying to remain vigilant,” he said.
Shaw said DPS takes an educational approach and focuses on teaching students smart habits early, using tactics such as offering free self-defense classes and going door-to-door in the residence halls. It’s the transition from the residence halls to apartment living, however, that is often a concern for DPS, Shaw said.
“In the residence halls, there’s such a trust factor that students won’t do things like lock their doors,” Shaw said. “They had this community environment, and they sometimes bring that with them when they move. We really have to keep pounding into the upperclassmen that when you move off campus, the security issue is heightened.”
Security issues have been pounded into students such as Carrie Massura, who lives in a house on 24th Street and Kilbourn Avenue, just outside the public safety patrol boundaries. Although Massura’s neighborhood is comprised mostly of families with children, Massura she said she is always aware of the fact that there aren’t many students walking to and from the area.
“In the dorms, more of the safety stuff was taken care of for us,” said Massura, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. “I do feel more responsible (for my safety) now because I don’t have as many people looking out for me as closely anymore.”
Massura said she relies on the LIMOs, which stop within one block of her residence, for a safe way to come home from campus.
But in some situations and locations, LIMO service is not an option. College of Engineering sophomore Al George, College of Education freshman Justine Cabaj and College of Nursing freshman Christine Mattappillil took a trip off-campus that left them with no options for typical DPS safety services at a time when they needed them most.
The three students said they were coming back from Fox Bay Cinema Grill, a movie theater with full menu located at 334 E. Silver Spring Drive, on Nov. 22 when a re-routed bus changed their original travel plans. As the students were making the two-block trip to a new bus stop, their movie excursion turned frightening.
“These two guys came up with two guns and they said, ‘Stop where you are. Give us all your money,’ ” Mattappillil said. “They had the gun to Al’s back … it was so scary.”
The men asked for George’s wallet and Cabaj’s purse, and Mattappillil said she threw her spare change at them so they wouldn’t attempt to steal her other belongings. Although the men only received approximately $6 in cash and made a $5 charge on George’s debit card, the students said their loss of a sense of security was far more significant.
“I’m just overwhelmingly pissed off,” George said. “There’s just nothing you can do.”
Mattappillil said they didn’t feel as though they were in a bad neighborhood, and their close proximity to the traffic- and pedestrian-heavy Brady Street gave them an extra sense of comfort.
“You just wouldn’t have expected it,” Mattappillil said. “And there were three of us, and you know they always say to walk in groups.”
Both Mattappillil and Cabaj also noted that because they had a male friend walking with them, they felt more secure being out late at night.
“But I can’t stop a bullet,” George said. “A gun trumps over everything you’ve got.”
Traveling in groups is often touted as practical safety advice, but Shaw said he thinks students fall into a false sense of security while walking with others.
“If the bad guys (are) taking a risk to begin with, their thought can be, ‘Why not rob multiple people at one time?’ ” Shaw said. “They have no fear of your numbers, especially if a weapon is involved.”
According to Shaw, the best way for students to avoid becoming victims off-campus is to plan everything “to a ‘T.’ ”
“In many cases when students run into trouble off-campus it’s because they are lost, which is about the worst case scenario,” Shaw said.
While everyone’s personal experience with crime is different, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said the overall growth or demise of any neighborhood’s crime depends on the area’s perception of safety.
“Crime does not flourish in a place where people feel connected to each other,” Flynn said during the Jan. 21 “On the Issues with Mike Gousha,” a Law School discussion and lecture series.
At “On the Issues” Flynn said city homicides were down 33 percent in 2008 from the yearly averages of the past 20 years. But according to Flynn, simply enforcing crime-reducing measures is not enough.
“We are painfully aware of the fact that every number is a person,” Flynn said. “People take their cues about their safety not from the data we publicize, but (from) their personal experience with urban life.”
Like DPS, Flynn said MPD tries to focus on preventing crime from happening in the first place.
“Our primary metric is not how fast we get to (the crime scene),” Flynn said. “It’s how well we prevent incidents from happening in the future.”
While the sizes and scopes of DPS’s and MPD’s services vary, risk management expert W. Scott Lewis said the best law enforcement agencies work under the mindsets of education and prevention.
Lewis, a partner at the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, said although focusing on safety at the university level is crucial, personal safety awareness learned at college will continue to impact students’ lives after graduation.
“Being smart and using common sense will always be a transferable skill,” Lewis said. “Law enforcement tries to keep bad people off the streets, but ultimately, everyone’s personal safety is their own responsibility.”
While DPS and MPD take strides to ensure public safety, security certainly remains a personal concern — especially among college students, an age group likely to be victimized by a variety of crimes. Even as campus and city crime numbers continue to move in the right direction, personal awareness should remain a priority. Countless cases show: you never think it will happen to you.