I practically ran back to my room in Shaw from Flint one night during Labor Day weekend of my freshman year. I was alone, it was about 3 a.m. and the guy digging cans out of a nearby dumpster didn’t exactly ease my nerves.

Between stories of Thornden Park rapes and robberies and the shooting of a grad student off Euclid Avenue, I couldn’t help but let my imagination run a little wild with the thought of being the subject of another campus safety alert e-mail.

Call me naive, but I’m from a relatively affluent suburb, and if a person were to approach me in the middle of the night, he would just as soon hand me a wad of cash than stick a gun in my face and ask for your iPod.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it, Syracuse is not a safe city to live in. Last year Public Safety reported at least 10 incidents involving students, ranging from apartment robberies to an abduction and sexual assault near Marshall Street. During summer vacation alone there were two incidents of Syracuse University students being robbed at gunpoint and one sexual assault, the latter of which occurred in the middle of the day. And that’s before most of the students returned to campus.

Capt. Drew Buske of Public Safety said in an interview that there’s an immediate boost of the local population now that classes are in full swing, thus creating more potential targets for criminals. Because of this, it’s not uncommon to see a slight surge in criminal activity during the first few weeks of the semester. Buske suggests following most of the guidelines sent out with campus safety alert e-mails (you know, the ones that you delete from your inbox before you even bother to read them).

It’s pretty simple stuff: Stay in well-lit areas, walk in groups of three or more and go directly to your destination using a familiar path. It’s not hard to do, but it’s one of those things in which everyone has to do his or her part in order for it to work effectively. There’s no good simply relying on the cops to catch all the bad guys ahead of time. Most importantly though, if you are approached, always comply with the suspect’s demands. There is no need to play hero.

‘I’d much rather investigate a stolen wallet than someone getting hurt,’ Buske said.

Public Safety and Syracuse Police may boost their patrols in the university area Friday and Saturday nights, but unfortunately they can’t be everywhere at once. And unless students remain aware while walking around (yes, even if it’s after Chuck’s happy hour), they can become the perfect prey.

And freshmen, don’t think you’re going to get off so easy. You may be traveling in packs of 10 or more now, but this is a new area to you, so stay in places you know. If the shouts of ‘freshman!’ from upperclassmen have disappeared, chances are you have ventured too far from Shaw Hall.

Steven Kovach is an English and textual studies and newspaper journalism major. His columns appear weekly in The Daily Orange. You can e-mail him at sjkovach@syr.edu.

Published on August 31, 2006 at 12:00 pm