Every night, a few of the Daily Forty-Niner editors and I have to finish putting the rest of newspaper together. Sometimes we finish at 8 p.m., but most nights we finish between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. After it’s done, we go our separate ways, waiting for the next “fun-filled-day” of informing our campus.
But I realized one night last week while walking to my car at around 9 p.m. that it was not that safe. As I walked to the car, I saw some students walking towards the parking lot. I always thought, “Well, I will be safe. There are other students around.” But at the same time, I realized the newspaper kept reporting attack after attack, but I did not realize it until recently.
As I was walking to the newsroom on Wednesday, a flyer posted on the women’s bathroom door in the SSPA Building caught my eye. It read “Crime Alert” in bright red letters and listed three separate attacks and the descriptions of those suspects. Since I work at the newspaper, I knew about the three attacks on campus that were reported, but it did not really occur to me until I saw the crime alert, that these three attacks occurred within the last four weeks. After reading it, I immediately walked to the Daily Forty-Niner newsroom to tell the news editor that we had to do a story on this.
So that night, we gathered information from the crime alert and the little information received from the lieutenant to write a story. It was frightening for me to type how one of the suspects “forced her to the ground and sexually assaulted” her near the dorms.
Then I started to remember when I was at the South Turnaround one night by myself and I read in the crime alert that an assault occurred on Nov. 12 when “the suspect grabbed her from behind” at that location. “He tried to pull her into the trees, but”she fought him off and was able to escape.”
After I finished writing the story, I wondered why these three men had not been caught. They could be lingering around one of the parking structures. They could be waiting to pounce on the next victim near the library. Or they could be wandering near the SSPA Building where I could possibly be attacked.
We finally finished the paper around 8:15 p.m. The news editor was willing to wait for me while I cleaned up, but I told her to go home. She waited for her friend to walk her back to the dorms, and when he arrived, they left.
In the meantime, I cleaned up the newsroom, called a few writers to remind them of their deadlines and edited some photos. But then I noticed that it was around 9:35 p.m., and I was alone in the newsroom.
I decided to call the escort service. In about five minutes, the officer came to the door and we walked to Deukmejian Way, the narrow street outside of the SSPA Building, where a campus vehicle was parked. As we got into the vehicle, I told him that there have been too many attacks on campus which is why I called the service. He told me that he was aware of it and had been very busy picking up other students. He said campus police have received many calls from students to be escorted to their desired location.
As he drove I thought, “Why can’t I walk across campus without thinking that some person will attack me?” “Why are these men still running loose?”
In the story I wrote, the lieutenant said the attacks are not related. But the attacks happened within weeks of each other and they all occurred on campus.
It is annoying to be escorted around campus because some perverted men who have nothing else to do with their time but attack women on this campus.
I hope all students, faculty and staff, men and women, read about what’s going on around them, whether it’s in the Daily Forty-Niner, the Union, the Press-Telegram or whatever newspaper you like, to stay safe.
Starr T. Balmer is a senior journalism major and the editor in chief for the Daily Forty-Niner.
