The Johns Hopkins Security Department is making an increased effort this fall to educate students about ways to stay safe at Homewood. The move comes after the murder of junior Christopher Elser, who was stabbed to death in an off-campus fraternity house last April.
Hopkins is still following a standard style of handling security, said Hopkins Security Lt. Steven Ossmus, but they are also aggressively trying to educate members of the Hopkins community.
"The awareness is something we're really jumping on this year so that people know what we have so that they can best take advantage of it," he said.
Hopkins is using a variety of methods to reach students. For example, Hopkins Security officers plan to talk with Resident Assistants during their training program to educate them about ways to stay safe. In addition, they will also make a one-hour presentation during freshman orientation and will host another for graduate students. The presentations will also feature a newly created Power Point presentation. By targeting those two groups, officials hope that they will be able to introduce them to the services offered by the security office.
"We're trying to put our names out and our faces out and to encourage them to contact us regarding security or crime issues in general," Ossmus said.
Security officials say that some of their best tips are common sense, such as walking in pairs and groups. That in particular applies to the new construction taking place near campus.
"We have the new project, Royal Farms and Ivy Hall are closed and people might be branching out further for food. We ask them to be mindful of their surroundings," said Ossmus.
He encourages students to use the Hopkins escort and shuttle service as much as possible. Hopkins also has student security monitors who can walk with students to various places on campus. In addition, there are also over twenty-five blue lights on campus which Ossmus says can only help students if they are mindful of their surroundings.
Officials are also awaiting the findings of a full security assessment that was conducted last spring by IXp Corporation of Princeton, NJ, a private consulting firm that has done similar work at other colleges across the country. IXp's technological assessment will cover areas such as dispatch, the use of digital cameras and camera placement.
Hopkins' increased security efforts come at a time when crime has been a particularly big issue at Homewood. Even though crime rates have fallen in Baltimore city during the past year, they have risen in the areas immediately surrounding Hopkins.
Adding extra reason for alarm, Hopkins students have been particularly vulnerable to the recent spat of crime in the area.
The year began with a series of indecent exposure incidents that occurred across from campus on North Charles Street. The first two incidents occurred within three weeks of each other. At the time, Hopkins Investigator Dennis Rosemary told the News-Letter that indecent exposure incidents were rare and often isolated.
"I couldn't give you a clue as to why this has happened now. It could be someone released from an institution. We haven't had this in a while," he said.
In mid-February, an international student was tricked by two con artists into withdrawing a large sum of money from his bank account. The incident, called a "flim flam" or a highly professional scam, occurred when the suspects claimed they would share a substantial amount of money with the student, but only after the student first provided them with money. Rosemary told the News-Letter on Feb. 20 that after the student withdrew money and gave it the con artists, they disappeared. The incident raised eyebrows because such cases are rare.
"It's the first case of this nature I've seen in a long time," Rosemary told the News-Letter. "When I first heard about it, I was shocked."
On Feb. 28, a dispute in the corner of 33rd and St. Paul Streets over a sandwich order at Royal Farms turned that store into a crime scene when one of the store's employees stabbed a customer three times, sending the victim to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
The customer, a Towson University student who lived with Hopkins students, suffered serious intestinal injuries.
The suspect, Rodeny McClain, was apprehended by Baltimore City Police.
Just a few weeks later, a Hopkins junior suffered minor injuries when a would-be robber confronted him near the Allston Apartment building on North Charles Street The victim managed to punch his attacker, but he did suffer a cut on his arm when the attacker swung at him with a knife before fleeing the scene.
In response to the security problems, most notably the Elser stabbing, the administration held a town-hall meeting with students to discuss how to make the area safer. But while many say there is more that can be done, some people caution that security concerns are a part of everyday life.
"Hopkins is in an urban environment," Hopkins spokesman Dennis O'Shea said last April. "But in many ways, no matter where you are, it is an unfortunate fact of the society in which we live that we have to be cognizant of our surroundings at all times."
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