Author: Sommer Hamilton
At approximately 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 7, Elizabeth Gelinas (senior) was harassed by two men yelling obscenities while walking two blocks home from her job as a cocktail waitress at Marty’s on York Boulevard. The men followed her for several minutes, getting so close that they were “on both sides of me . . . making inappropriate comments, so I started walking more quickly and then started running,” she said. The men then sped up their pace until they eventually left her alone, when Gelinas sought refuge in another bar.
Gelinas had earlier requested a Safety Escort pick-up from Campus Safety to take her home, but was denied because Marty’s is outside of the Safety Escort boundaries. This incident and increased student presence along York Boulevard have caused some to wonder why Campus Safety has not expanded the Safety Escort boundary to include the portion of York Boulevard between Avenue 50 and Avenue 52 that is home to three bars Oxy students frequent.
The current boundaries of the Safety Escort encompass approximately a “two-and-a-half block radius” of campus, according to Director of Campus Safety, Holly Nieto. The edges of the boundary are Eagle Rock Boulevard, Corliss, York, and Avenue 50. Currently, there are no plans to expand the boundaries, but Campus Safety will soon be “taking a comprehensive look at our Escort program,” Nieto said. Campus Safety is currently facing a “resource issue” in which they do not have enough student and professional staff to expand the Escort program.
Nieto said it is important to remember that unless students report incidents such as Gelinas’s, Campus Safety has no idea what is happening to students off campus. Occidental is “in a relatively safe patch” in an area of Los Angeles where crime is generally increasing, Nieto said. “However, incidents happen and students should inform Campus Safety as soon as possible.”
LAPD should be called first, if necessary, and Campus Safety notified afterwards. Campus Safety must be notified so that they can alert other students of any possible danger.
“Timeliness is important when we get the information [because] we’ve got to make sure that students understand what’s going on,” Nieto said. “I would come back to help put out a timely warning just to make certain that people know the risks that are out there.”
Unfortunately, students do not always inform Campus Safety promptly. “Quite frankly I’m really surprised at how blasé students are about making police reports,” Nieto said, adding that “last time there was an armed robbery where a student was affected, it was off campus . . . we didn’t find out about it for two-and-a-half days.”
If a student experiences a negative situation that could also be a threat to other students, it is his/her duty to tell Campus Safety so that other students are not at risk. “I would think that students would want to help take care of each other,” Nieto said. Gelinas never notified Campus Safety of her experience and it is possible that others have had similar experiences of which Campus Safety has no idea.
Campus Safety does take the off-campus safety of Occidental students seriously. Nieto said Campus Security cars “are out in the neighborhood often” and regularly patrol the nearby streets on which students live. Officers are even willing to keep an eye on student houses that are unoccupied over breaks.
Nieto “absolutely” recommends that students who live off-campus live within the Escort Boundary for both access to the Safety Escort and to stay within the college community. She also recommends “talk[ing] to your neighbors . . . [It’s] the best thing in the world students can do that live off campus” so that students will have an idea of what is happening in the neighborhood and will have members of the Oxy community looking out for them.
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