Marquette’s LIMO services were disrupted last night. Students were told they could not be dropped off anywhere west of 18th Street due to police presence in the area, and students were advised to stay in a secure location due to a shooting that occurred near the 800 block of 22nd street around 8 p.m. The Marquette Wire was able to confirm the limited service lasted for at least an hour, around 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.
LIMOs are campus safety vans that operate from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. and transport members of the Marquette community around campus and the surrounding areas.
There was a heavy police presence in the lobby of the Hickory Gardens apartment building, which is located at 825 N. 22nd St., in the general area where the shooting took place. Two non-Marquette affiliated individuals sustained gunshot wounds.
Nathan Russell, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences and LIMO driver and dispatcher for Campus Safety, said the LIMOs were not able to pick up or drop students off west of 18th Street due to the shooting.
Because the LIMO and campus safety programs work alongside the Marquette University Police Department, Russell said that if MUPD has any issues that develop they can either ground the LIMOs or close them off to certain areas of campus.
“Grounding the LIMOs happens when there’s a police chase in the area or they know that there’s going to be a lot of MUPD squads racing off to go to something so they don’t want a LIMO to be in the way, so they ground the LIMOs … and are stationary until they resume us,” Russell said.
When MUPD is conducting an open investigation like they were last night, Russell said they close off a certain radius for LIMOs to go through.
As a Mashuda Hall resident, Russell said it’s inconvenient not being able to get back to his residence hall and almost defeats the purpose of the LIMO. However, he said it’s understandable due to the safety measures the LIMO needs to take.
“Knowing that MUPD is handling the situation and getting the text that said there wasn’t an active threat at that point obviously still walking you have that feeling in the back of your head that, ‘Oh there’s still a threat to campus, but obviously it’s taken care of,’ I think knowing that MUPD was in that area working on it eased my tensions of needing to walk,” Russell said.
The Wire reached out to Marquette University Police Department, who directed the Wire to Marquette’s Office of Marketing and Communication. They said they had no knowledge of the situation and did not offer any additional information.
Around 11 p.m. the LIMO service resumed its original service with the exception of a few addresses that would still be inaccessible due to the police presence.
The Marq university apartments and Mashuda Hall are located west of 18th Street.
Marquette advertises LIMOs as a way to “keep members of the Marquette community safe at night.” LIMOs are also supposed to wait until a student has made it inside their residence, car or other building.
“I know The Marq isn’t in the safest area, but I always feel safer when I know I can get a ride from the LIMO but now I don’t feel safe getting home,” Erin Farley, junior in the College of Nursing, said.
This story was written by the Marquette Wire Staff.
