My parents hate that I live in West Philadelphia. In fact, they hate the fact even more that technically I could live in the safe confines of our home in suburban Philadelphia, but would rather choose to live at school on a street that 34th Street voted most likely to get mugged on. I get daily emails about the crime logs and incessant phone calls reminding me to set the security alarm, all because we live in the hot bed of crime known as University City.
While my parents are thoroughly convinced that nothing could ever go wrong in the suburbs of the Mainline, little do they know that horrible crime is not just happening in our urban environment, but is also occurring at our neighboring suburban schools.
Just this Saturday, a shooting occurred at Villanova University after a dance held at the school’s Connely center. No one was hit by the shots, but needless to say, the suburban campus has been shaken up by the incident. In a town notorious for its surplus of law enforcers, Radnor Township police unfortunately missed this serious transgression. Authorities are still clueless as to who is guilty of the crime, but security has been increased in order to assure the students’ safety.
Though the Radnor Police were not there to witness the incident, the police and university implemented their new NovaAlert system which alerts students via text message in case of emergency. Students were immediately informed 9 minutes after the incident occurred and were advised to move to a secure location and lock doors. At approximately 7:36 AM students were messaged again and informed that the shooter had left campus and students could resume to their normal routines.
If this incident tells us anything, it is that no campus is safe -– no matter where it is located. While Penn does sport higher crime rates than our suburban neighbors, it is essential to note that we’re not the only ones that have seen an upsurge in crime. Now more than ever we have to be cautious, may it be in our “Penn bubble” or in the “safehaven” we call suburbia.
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December 13th, 2007 at 2:32 am
You clearly haven’t lived in any other “urban” environments. The administration is really taking too much leeway with calling Penn’s crime typical of an “urban” environment. The homicide rate in urban New York City is a fifth of that of Philadelphia. In fact, Philadelphia has a higher per capita homicide rate than ANY other city with a population of over 1 million. This is not a suburban vs. urban issue; it’s a Philadelphia issue.