On a quiet night last spring, a man in blue jeans and a white t-shirt made his way to a third floor balcony in LXR where a female student was smoking, forced her to a nearby room, and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint. It’s still unclear how he gained entry to the dorm, whether through the building’s unguarded side entrances, over the fence on Prospect Street or simply past the Securitas guards, vulnerabilities known to nearly all East Campus residents. In the days after the attack, as the Georgetown community struggled to understand how such a heinous act could take place within the supposedly safe walls of our university, the Department of Public Safety took swift action, sealing off the unlocked entryways, fixing broken Go Card swiping machines, and adding extra DPS patrols around East Campus. These changes, as well as changes that were made over the summer, are necessary and welcome, but it’s unacceptable that it took a sexual assault for DPS to get serious about security. It will take a vast overhaul, one which DPS seems to be committed to making, for the University to regain students’ trust and make them once again feel safe on campus.
DPS recently announced that it will add bike patrols, a DPS outpost in East Campus, the replacement of notoriously unreliable doors in Henle and new alarms in LXR. It’s also beginning an initiative called “Community Oriented Public Safety,” which orients patrol patterns so that officers focus their efforts around specific residence halls. These programs show that DPS is ready to adapt better address vulnerabilities on campus.
Unfortunately, DPS has also announced that officers will carry batons and pepper spray after a training course. Arming campus police officers will only lead to more quickly escalated situations between officers and students, and the unnecessary use of violence. Although the mandatory training is a positive sign, the batons and pepper spray are not a solution to the safety problems on campus.
Cooperation between students and DPS is also necessary to secure the campus. In addition to the Student Safety Advisory Board, DPS should also set up a dialogue with the Resident Assistants, who are best situated to report lapses in security, whether it be a broken GoCard machine, a sleeping guard, or a door that won’t lock. Because these students are already in a position of leadership among residents in a dorm, they would be reliable contacts for resolving issues. Furthermore, Vice President for Student Safety Rocco DelMonaco, Jr. should work towards his stated goal of removing Securitas, the contracted security company that was guarding LXR the night of the armed assault. If all of these changes prove to be effective, the University will hopefully be able to make Georgetown students feel safe again, wherever they are on campus.
