Security Week returns to promote student safety

Last week, Campus Safety and Security organized activities and events to promote safety at Homewood. Starting on Sept. 9 and ending on Sept. 12, Campus Security officers were out on different quads encouraging students to sign up for the city-wide crime watch program, and to learn about safety around campus.

“It’s to give awareness to students about crime prevention and the importance of being safe, especially in an urban environment,” Lieutenant Stephen Moffett, a Campus Security officer, said.

At each event throughout Security Week, a booth operated by a Campus Security officer encouraged students to sign up for Hopkins Crime Watch, a Baltimore-wide crime watch program.

“We’ve had a lot of people come to our table and talk about crime prevention. We asked people to sign up for the city-wide crime watch program. When they do that, they also get a free T-shirt that’s promoting our crime prevention programing,” Moffett explained.

Hopkins Crime Watch is an initiative administered by the Northern District of the Baltimore Police. It is designed to promote the reporting of illegal activities in the surrounding area. Each participating student received a unique Crime Watch number with which they can anonymously report suspicious activities.

Interactive events were also an important aspect of Security Week. Tuesday involved a DUI obstacle course, where students donned “drunk goggles” and attempted to navigate an obstacle course while driving a golf cart on the Freshman Quad. On Wednesday, the Mount Washington Bike Shop Service performed free safety inspections on bikes and fixed any minor issues for free. On Thursday and Friday, security officers taught proper Segway riding techniques on the Upper Quad.

“We’ve had our T3 rides, as we’re doing today, where people get to ride our three-wheel motorized vehicle and play the siren and flash the lights,” Moffett said.

Junior Noor Khalil was one of the students who participated in Security Week events. He took part in both the Segway ride and the DUI Obstacle course.

“They had golf carts to ride, and you had to ride the golf carts while wearing beer goggles to show you how drunk driving is like,” Khalil said.

Khalil, like many other students this week, signed up for the Hopkins Crime Watch after learning about the program.

“I did learn, previously from other security events. There’s a thing called…Crime Watch, you get like a code that’s connected to your name so when you call the police to report a crime you can just say the code instead of saying your name, so in case you’re ever in a situation where you don’t want to tell the police your real name, you can just say that and if they have to contact you, they will contact security, which will then connect them to you,” Khalil said.

Campus Security also teamed up with other groups on campus that seek to promote healthy and safe living at Johns Hopkins.

“We’ve partnered up with some other groups in collaboration, especially [the Center for Health Education and Wellness (CHEW)]. They were out here; they’ve been out here with us a couple days this week talking about the dangers of alcohol consumption and the importance of not getting yourself put in an awkward situation where you’re too intoxicated to have control of what’s going on in your environment,” Moffett said.

CHEW serves as the health promotion arm of the Student Health and Wellness Center (HelWell).

“And also, today, we are going to have a [Hopkins Emergency Response Organization (HERO)] demonstration on the MSE circle. We’ll be doing a mock HERO drill, so we are looking forward to that as well,” Moffett added.

Although Security Week is over, Campus Security plans to continue to promote safe living at Hopkins. For the rest of September, Security officers will conduct Security Walks around Charles Village to educate freshmen on living in an urban setting.

“We’re taking them on their walk [to] talk about, employing proper tactics to stay safe in an urban environment, [such as] how to avoid getting robbed [and] how to avoid getting your cell phone taken from you,” Moffett said.