Northwestern officials hope to improve safety on and around campus in response to the recent string of robberies.
The measures include adding nighttime patrols and lighting and reaching out to Evanston residents.
Four attacks on students have been reported in Evanston since the beginning of Fall Quarter. Soon after the first attack, which occurred shortly after 11 p.m. on Oct. 3, University Police added security contractors to patrol the campus during the night, said Assistant Chief Daniel McAleer of UP.
The security officers have been assigned to campus for the past two weeks, and there are two of them patrolling every night between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m.
One rides a bicycle around the south residential quads, where a female student was reported battered on the evening of Oct. 15. The other contractor drives around campus in a car, McAleer said.
“They’re strictly eyes and ears,” McAleer said. “They radio Northwestern University Police if they see something suspicious.”
In addition, UP has shifted staff from daytime shifts and the Chicago campus to place more sworn police officers on the Evanston campus night shift, McAleer said.
“There are seven to 11 total people out between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m., and usually that number might be five, possibly four,” McAleer said. “Really, you’re seeing double the coverage.”
During the 2004-05 school year, UP had two or three security personnel driving around campus in golf carts at night. This type of patrol was discontinued because the carts kept breaking down during the winter, McAleer said.
South Campus also could see improved lighting in the “near future,” said Andrew McGonigle, a project manager in the design and construction division of NU facilities management.
A plan to install 19 streetlights outside university buildings will go before the Evanston City Council at tonight’s meeting. NU will pay for the lights to be installed on city-owned grass, McGonigle said.
If the council approves NU’s plans, the lights would go up on Clark Street in front of the Alumni Center, on Church Street in front of the School of Continuing Studies, and on the west sides of the 1700 block of Judson Avenue and the 1800 block of Sheridan Road.
The new lamps on South Campus are a response to a “light walk” that Associated Student Government held in November 2004 to draw attention to areas of poor lighting around campus.
“We felt that because students park their cars there, those areas need to be safer to walk back from at night,” said ASG External Relations Chairwoman Jill Sager, a Weinberg senior.
Two of the recent attacks occurred west of campus, and Community Relations Specialist Lucile Krasnow said residents are increasing lighting in that neighborhood.
“More and more neighbors are keeping their porch lights on all night long,” Krasnow said. “It makes students feel more safe when they’re walking in the evening.”
Students living off campus should to do the same, Krasnow said. Students who live in the area should contact their landlords if they don’t have exterior lighting installed on their houses.
A proposed “safe house” program, which would allow students to take refuge in residents’ homes at night if they felt it was unsafe to keep walking outside, was abandoned because of safety concerns, Krasnow said.
“Both students and full-time residents have some questions about how it would operate, when it would be safe to open doors to someone knocking in the middle of the night and be sure it wasn’t an intruder,” Krasnow said.
Although police have not reported arrests in any of the four attacks on students, McAleer said officers stopped groups of juveniles and young adults soon after each of the on-campus attacks.
But the students could not positively identify their attackers because they were frightened when the crimes occurred or, as was the case on Oct. 3, the victim had his glasses snatched off his face, McAleer said.
UP recorded the suspects’ names and information, he said.
“Some of the juveniles were out past curfew and so were released to their parents,” McAleer said. “The others were warned that the university was private property and unless they had some official business for being on campus, they’re not welcome.”
The Daily’s Laura Olson contributed to this report.
Reach Greg Hafkin at [email protected].
