Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Kansas Attorney General Steve Six and local police agencies will host a personal safety forum on campus tomorrow to raise awareness about sexual assaults.
The event, which will begin at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union, will be co-hosted by the Lawrence Police Department and the KU Public Safety Office. A similar forum will also be held later in the day at Kansas State University in Manhattan.
Here are a few personal safety tips, courtesy of the KU Public Safety Office. More information and tips can be found at www.ku.edu/~kucops/.
Get someone to drive you: Use the SafeRide service by calling 785-864-7233(SAFE). SafeRide is available from 10:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. each night during fall and spring semesters.
Get someone to walk with you: Use the Jaywalk service by calling 785-864-3222. Jaywalk is available from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., Sunday through Thursday during fall and spring semesters.
Find an emergency phone: Blue emergency phones are located throughout campus and are available to report emergencies to campus police. Phone locations are available on the KU Public Safety Office’s Web site.
Driving tips: If you are approaching your vehicle and see anyone in the area that makes you feel uncomfortable, do not go to it. Keep your vehicle doors locked at all times.
Be alert at all times: When at a bar or party, do not take an opened or poured beverage from a stranger, and never drink from an unattended beverage. If you are using an ATM or phone, always be aware of your surroundings. Reduce the time you are standing at a locked door by having your keys ready before you get there. Keep your purse or backpack close to your body with a tight grip.
The event is an effort to step up proactive safety measures after the attorney general’s office found similarities between 13 rapes in the Lawrence and Manhattan areas. The first of those rapes occurred in 2001 and the most recent occurred in December 2008.
“As the semester begins, it is critical that all students understand the importance of personal safety and know how to avoid potentially dangerous situations,” Six said in a press release announcing the event.
Students and members of the general public are invited to attend the forum. Six, Lawrence police and University police are scheduled to speak at the event.
Elise Higgins, Topeka senior and president of the University’s Commission on the Status of Women, will also discuss student safety during the forum.
Higgins said she hoped to give a student perspective and to teach students how to access campus crime reports and how to get involved with safety issues on campus.
Sgt. Bill Cory, Lawrence police spokesman, said his department’s presentation would focus on off-campus safety issues.
“A lot of these students are younger, just moved away from home, and it’s good to be able to get them in a forum where we can tell them how to take care of themselves,” Cory said.
The attorney general’s office said it thought the five rapes in Lawrence and eight in Manhattan were related and hoped this event would help prevent future attacks. All of the attacks were committed late at night by an armed man with a covered face. Most of the attacks happened while students were on academic break and none of the attacks occurred on either campus.
In the most recent Lawrence attack, a 19-year-old KU student was raped by a man who entered her home with a handgun.
Capt. Schuyler Bailey, KU Public Safety Office spokesman, said his department would give campus safety tips and would highlight resources available to students.
“This is a reminder, ‘Hey guys it’s the beginning of the semester, you’re back. We want you to have a good time, but at the same time we want you to be safe,’” Bailey said.
— — Edited by Nick Gerik
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Comments
Police to host safety seminar on campus
It is great to hear KU is helping inform these new kids coming onto campus, as well as those who may already be there. Will this event cover the option for concealed carry gun permits as an option as a deterrent and or lethal option?
I would love to see states, which are collecting out of state tuition, offer the option for these out of state students to be able to register for an in-state conceal carry weapons permit. As an example for our friends from IL (who does not have CCW permits), why not provide these students the option to legally protect themselves while they live in Kansas for 9 months of the year?
If the Kansas Board of Regents has not yet pushed for CCW on campus, please consider this as a part of safety puzzle, for those who decided to exercise this constitutional right.
Rock Chawk
Police to host safety seminar on campus
How in the hell is a CCW a deterrent? Have you seen Dr. Strangelove? If you have a weapon that is supposed to deter something, you need to make sure everyone knows you have it. For police to suggest CCW as a "lethal option" at a safety seminar is not just counter-intuitive, it is full retard.
Also, English. Get some.
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