Last Wednesday, a man not affiliated with Marquette — but well-known as a common trespasser by the Department of Public Safety — walked into Schroeder Complex and was almost immediately spotted by officers who turned him away with a warning.

But that didn’t keep him from going off campus and walking into a student’s unlocked apartment on the 1300 block of W. Kilbourn Ave.

The student who lived in the apartment called DPS, and they located the suspect.

“We called MPD at that point and they did cite the suspect,” said Russell Shaw, the associate director and captain for DPS. “We have not seen or heard from the suspect since.”

Shaw said giving suspects a warning is typically the response to trespassing cases before the Milwaukee Police Department is called to issue a citation, but he stressed that there is nothing to be alarmed about, as incidents of trespassing can be very sporadic.

“Generally speaking, anyone who doesn’t belong to Marquette tends to point themselves out by their suspicious activity and how they are acting inside of the building,” he said, emphasizing that students should to be aware of their surroundings. “In a lot of cases what happens is people are in areas on campus that they shouldn’t be and we need to check those out.”

If students or faculty are not feeling comfortable about someone they see on or off campus, it is best to call DPS, but Shaw advised that the Marquette community should be aware of the campus’s diversity when noticing different people they may not see all the time.

“We have a very diverse campus because we are in a very diverse neighborhood, so we can have a lot of different people walking in and out of our buildings,” he said.

In cases where students feel uncomfortable with someone in a building, he said not to approach anyone.

“Call us and let us determine and find out who a person might be,” he said. “They could be legit, but let us find out.”

Anna Hull, a senior in the College of Communication, lives on campus and is concerned with more ways to try and protect herself since the trespassing incidents occurred.

“At this point so much stuff is happening that even if you do take as many precautions as you can, you can’t necessarily stop them,” she said. “It’s happening to everyone.”

Lukas Baker, also a senior in the College of Communication, said the two incidents of trespassing are proof DPS should be considered as its own police force.

“MPD cannot be relied upon wholly as our actual police force to respond to incidents around campus,” Baker said, adding that with crime in Milwaukee going up, MPD is being drawn out all across the city.

“DPS is all we have,” he said.