Bomb Threat Photos

A faint "LIBRARY" scrawled in pen above the BUILDING CLOSED sign on the SAC doors leading across the courtyard to the library.











The DePaul library remains shuttered after a bomb threat at 11:30 A.M. this morning.

No Alerts for DePaul Students

If there is a bomb on my campus, I want to know - so I can make sure not to GO to campus and get myself bombed. Makes sense, right?

So where was DePaul's message alert system during Thursday's bomb threat? We were supposed to receive phone, text message, and e-mail alerts if something major happened on campus - a bomb threat seems major to me.

We also have the message boards in all the classrooms - why didn't those go off, telling us to evacuate?

Public Safety is keeping quiet as the case is still under investigation.

At 12:50 P.M. a Public Safety nameless spokesperson told me that it was Media Relations decision not to utilize the service. When I called Denise Mattson, head of PR, she told me that they had used the electronic message board system. Because the threat was relatively small, - no classes in the building, only one building, and because Public Safety and the CPD were there to personally help people leave the library. The DPU Alert system alerts 30,000 people simultaneously - DePaul tries to only use that service in life-threatening situations, like the gas leak down in the Loop. For that, the People's Gas and Public Safety people needed time to understand how it was going to impact the campus. The leak began at 5 A.M., and at 7 A.M., the departments decided to shut down the buildings - namely the DePaul Center and CDM, becuase 1,000s of people would have been in the area, and that could have been a life threatening situation.

The contrast to the library is that there was a smaller population at risk and the CPD and Public Safety were personally on hand, said Mattson.

Library evacuated due to bomb threat

As of 11:30 A.M. on Thursday, Feb. 19, the Richardson Library on DePaul's Lincoln Park campus was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

A news release posted on the University Web site said the following:

DePaul’s Richardson Library Evacuated




Chicago Police and DePaul University Public Safety officers began a precautionary evacuation of DePaul’s Richardson Library, 2350 N. Kenmore Ave., at 11:30 a.m. today in response to a bomb threat. The Police Bomb and Arson Unit and Public Safety are searching the building, which is expected to be closed until at least mid-afternoon.

At this time no other buildings are affected and classes and activities in all other Lincoln Park facilities will continue as scheduled.

For updates, check DePaul’s home page at http://depaul.edu.

Members of the DePaul community are advised not to call the university operator or other DePaul offices for information. All updates will be posted on the Web.


The threat is still under investigation, so no details have been released at this point. I will attempt to update this post as I get them.

Stay Safe at DePaul!

The DePaul Public Safety office has recently published a list of tips to help students stay safe on and off campus. They've posted the bright blue flyers on dorm and library doors, and encourage students to take notice. Some of the tips include:

• When jogging, have a route already planned out so you know where you're going and how to get back. Stay on well-lit streets.


• When shopping, keep your wallet or pocketbook in your pocket. Carry only the cash or credit cards you need.


• Utilize the escort service between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M. if you are travelling between buildings on the Lincoln Park campus


• Travel in groups.


• Be aware of your surroundings

A full list of tips can be found on the flyers around campus - check it out so you know how to stay safe - some of the tips may be information you haven't encountered before.

Read those Safety Alerts!

The image you see above is a Safety Alert - issued by Public Safety when a crime happens on campus. They're posted on all the dorms and buildings on campus so that students will see and read them. Normally, they are very brightly colored - neon blue, yellow, pink, the particular safety alert above, when posted on campus, is actually blue, but Public Safety could not release the blue form to me (they only had one copy, so the officer just copied this one on white paper for me.) I could've stolen one from the library or U-Hall doors, but that would have been, yep, a crime.
The Safety Alerts are part of Public Safety’s “Protection, Prevention, Education” model to make students aware of crimes on campus. The crime reports list the what, where, and when of a crime (i.e. assault, robbery,) and give information on who to contact if you have any information about the crime – either the Chicago Police Department at 311 or the DePaul Public Safety office at 773-325-7777.The crime on this report was a hate crime that took place in the 2100 block of N. Kenmore at 4:00 A.M. on February 3, 2009. The alert was posted on Feb. 6.A man was attacked by three “unknown individuals,” and during the attack, the men made comments about the victim’s sexual orientation – making it a hate crime.The three-day delay in between the incident and the report concerns me. I think it shows us that we need to instantly report something when crimes happen to us or someone we know, so that other students or DePaul community members are not harmed. So, like the Chicago Transit Authority’s slogan, “if you see something, say something.” It’ll keep us all safe.

So, what do you think of Public Safety?

This interview was done as a project for Professor Tracy Samatha Schmidt's Online Journalism 1 course. I interviewed Heidi, a junior journalism student, and Brendan, a junior digital cinema student, about their views on the Public Safety department at DePaul University. Based on their experiences - Brendan has used the department's car escort service in freezing temperatures and while intoxicated; and Heidi has used it for rides home after night class and for help when a friend was attacked - the two had a lot of interesting things to say regarding the department, but no real ideas on how to improve the department or its alerts so that more students would pay attention.

Here's the YouTube link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id7TBD9TEuI

Meet Maureen Greene

Maureen Greene has worked at DePaul University for 16 years. For 13 of those years, she has worked as the head sergeant of crime prevention on campus. She's the face you meet during the safety presentation at orientation (where yes, they tell you they will pick you up and drive you back to your dorm when you are intoxicated,) and often, she is the woman who answers the phone at the Lincoln Park campus hotline, 773.325.7777.

"The most rewarding part is helping new freshman make the transition to college," says Greene. "But when they have a hard transition, or their parents have a hard time, then it becomes a problem."

Greene recalled a memorable moment on campus where she really felt she made a difference at DePaul. "The most memorable day was 9-11, trying to help students, parents and my own family in a very difficult moment of this country.  We had students from New York who were worried about their families and like everyone

else Public Safety is the 24 hour hub for information."

Greene had some interesting points about what Public Safety has done well and has not done well. "I think are personal interest and commitment to each individual student is very important to parents and students and we do this well.  I alsofeel our Escort Service is very unique in regards to other universities," referring to the escort car service that the department provides. I think in every job there is always room for improvement it is
sometimes difficult to get people to think in a different way, and still
try to keep the same services," says Greene.

For the number one thing students should know about Public Safety, it is that Public Safety is available to help DePaul students 24/7.

A New Look at University Crime - ucrime.com

UCrime.com offers listings of campus and city crimes for university students.

This image is a screen shot of the Chicago Crime Map I found on ucrime.com - a university/city based crime categorization Web site.

The idea for this post came to me from a comment I received on my blog - a man named Colin asked me if I'd seen this Web site: www.ucrime.com, and told me that they tracked crime on college campuses. I had never heard of the Web site before and decided to check it out, so I clicked on the link. Self-advertised as "the most comprehensive online source of crime information, [with] local maps, crime reports and classifications, [and] real-time interactive maps."

The Web site has listings for all 50 U.S. states and some universities in Canada, and includes crime maps, local statistics, and crime alerts. In Illinois, the university pages they include are: Bradley University, DePaul University, Illinois State, Loyola University Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern, Southern, SIU-Carbondale, Southwestern, UIC, and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The Illinois link also has a larger "Chicago Crime Map" link. There, users can type in an address and put in a date range, and look for all of the following crimes, or select a few. The crime categories you can search for are: Arrest, Arson, Assault, Burglary, Robbery, Shooting, Theft, Vandalism, and Other. The categories have little icons as well, which I laughed at. For example, arson is a little flame, arrest is a tiny pair of handcuffs, assualt is a fist, burglary is a person in a ski mask, robbery is a person running with a bag, shooting is a viewfinder icon and vandalism is a little shield. I searched for crime near my home from January 30 - Feb 6, and found out that there was one instance of assault near my home - at DePaul's Sanctuary Residence Hall.

The DePaul Crime Map itself was pretty interesting - it had tabs for the different crime categories, and included things that happened at both the Loop and Lincoln Park Campuses.

In the last week, from 1/30 to 2/6/09 there was an arrest at the Sullivan Athletic Center and an assault at Sanctuary Hall.

The map offers a clean and clear way to see where things are happening in your area, and the little icons really help you focus in.

Users can also sign up to get crime reports about their campus or state.

In addition to the Crime Map, there are links to report a crime and a UCrime blog. The link I found most interesting was under "About Us." It said, "Do you want to be a crime reporter for your university?" and then offered a link to register your name and e-mail and write a message to the Baltimore, MD based site.

All in all, the site is an interesting, helpful look at crime. I'm still partial to The DePaulia's blotter, but for a different look, check out www.ucrime.com.

Decoding the Blotter

In order for DePaul students to keep track of the different crimes on campus - from which student dorms had people illegally smoking or drinking last night, to bigger incidents, like assaults or robberies on campus, the Public Safety Department puts together a weekly blotter.

I'm going to put it in here and explain it to you, but you can also check it out every week in The DePaulia, (DePaul's student run-newspaper for which I just happen to be the Two Cents Editor. Yep. Shameless plug, right there in my blog: Read our paper!)

Back to the blotter. On the Public Safety Web site, I was able to get a rundown of the crimes that happened last week in Lincoln Park:

January 28 Lot H Theft of Vehicle
January 28 1150 W. Fullerton Criminal Damage
January 28 University Hall Fire Alarm
January 29 S.A.C. Elevator Entrapment
January 29 900 W. Belden Suspicion of Marijuana
January 30 Munroe Hall Suspicious Activity
January 30 S.A.C. Criminal Damage
January 30 Sanctuary Hall Harassment
January 31 Byrne Hall Fire Alarm
*Reports are not all verified

Here's the Loop crimes:

January 28 DePaul Center Theft
January 28 DePaul Center Criminal Trespass
January 31 DePaul Center Retail Theft
*Reports are not all verified

The Web site just has a listing of all the crimes, but if you check out The DePaulia (comes out every Friday afternoon,) you'll find a fancy map of Lincoln Park with every building on campus and with crime listings for the week. Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner so I cannot show you what the blotter looks like - but to describe - a campus map with a key describing each building (i.e. library, Seton Hall, S.A.C.) and then a listing of crimes. Pretty nifty - and it helps keep you updated on what happened where and when.

For more serious alerts - like robberies at gunpoint or assaults, Safety Alert flyers are posted around campus - on dorms and buildings, these brightly-colored pieces of paper describe the incident, list a description of the offender if one was given, and offer contact information for who to contact at the police department should you have any information.

The Pocket-Sized Emergency Response Guide

That's it - actual size, just a few inches each way. It's the new DePaul emergency response guide - chock full of helpful information for emergencies.

Here is just a sampling of the information that you will find inside this handy little guide:

• Important phone numbers, like those for DePaul's public safety offices, DePaul Health Services, the Office of Students with Disabilities, University Counseling Services, Environmental Health, Facility Operations, Student Affairs and Housing Services


• Plans for what to do in case of an emergency, like for extreme threats of violence (i.e. person with a weapon), including plans for what to do if you exit or do not exit the building.


• Plans for severe weather emergencies


• Plans for bomb threats


• Plans for medical emergencies


• Plans for chemical spills (probably especially useful if you are spending a lot of time in the new McGowan Science Center)

The guide also offers information on DePaul's notification systems, like DPU Alert and the Message Board and Speaker System, information on fire safety, and some helpful acronyms - one of which I'll share with you:

C.A.L.M.

Call 911

Alert neighbors and public safety

Listen for instructions from first responders

Move to a safe area

So there you have it - a lot of info packed into a tiny guide. Pick yours up at any building on campus - the student center, a res hall, or the public safety office. You can also call Public Safety at 773.325.7777. or 312.362.8400 and ask where to get your copy.

Clearing Up the Clery Report

"The Clery Report? What's that?" Trust me, I hadn't heard of it either before I walked into DePaul's public safety office. It's a national Department of Education report, to go along with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, which are government acts that require that crime statistics be released to the public.

Here's a verbatim account of the history of the report from the Public Safety Web site: "Enforced by the Department of Education, The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act is a federal law and was originally known as the Campus Security Act. The Clery Act requires colleges and universities across the United States to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses."


DePaul calls their report the Safety and Security Information Report. In addition to the breakdown of crimes, DePaul's report also offers definitions of crimes, such as arson, robbery, aggravated assualt, burglary, and different designations and classifications for sexual offenses.

The report also includes information on how to report a crime, security awareness programs, campus security systems and university contact information.

Here are some of the highlights (or since they're crimes, I guess I should call them lowlights,) of the 2008 report:

15 burglaries
2 forcible sexual offenses (i.e. rape or assault)
43 incidents of drug abuse
15 arrests for drug abuse
There were 5 robberies on the Lincoln Park Campus and 25 on the Loop campus.

To pick up your own copy of the report, you can go the Public Safety office on the Lincoln Park or Loop campus. If you don't want to trek outside in the cold, and if you want to save a tree at the same time, you can download your own report by clicking on this link: http://publicsafety.depaul.edu/safety/index.asp




Basically, it's a list of all the crimes that happen on campus annually. For example, this

An eco-friendly, two-wheeled way to get...robbed?

In an effort to think warmer thoughts, (Ah, August afternoons spent at North Avenue beach!) I thought I'd write today's blog about a popular method of getting to and from classes here at DePaul - our good old trusty friend, the bicycle!



It provides an alternative to driving or taking public transportation, and is faster than walking on your own two feet, so a lot of students use them to get to class. (I have actually seen a few students biking in this freezing, snowy weather - kudos to you.)



But, says Bob Wachowski, bikes are one of the prime candidates to get stolen during the year. People don't lock up their bikes or lock them up improperly, and then your two-wheeled transportation is swiped once you get out of class. Wachowski says that bike theft is one of the most common crimes that is called into Public Safety each year, with 47 bikes being stolen last year.



The Web site http://www.howtofixbikes.com/ offered tips and tricks for keeping your bike safe, including not leaving it outside for long periods of time ( a null and void point when you've got a three-hour night class,) and buying an expensive lock - stating that you get what you pay for.



Good luck, and happy riding!

Lights, Action, Camera!

The newest addition to the DePaul public safety department is a blue-light camera, installed above the traffic light on the northwest corner of Fullerton and Sheffield Avenues.

The camera was installed by the Chicago Police Department, said Jim Marino, Public Safety's director for emergency management, "mainly to handle crime on the CTA," with the Red, Brown, and Purple lines being right there at the Fullerton station.

In addition to tracking CTA crime, the camera also helps Public Safety track DePaul crime. It extends north and west from its location, and east up until the "el" tracks, so there is a wide range of surveillance images the Public Safety office can capture.

So, next time you're on the corner of Fullerton and Sheffield, smile - you're on camera!

He Sees the Big Picture: DePaul's New Assistant Director of Emergency Managment

You notice four things about Jim Marino the first time you meet him:

1. He's from Chicago. His accent is unmistakable.

2. He's a former DePaul student. Within two minutes of meeting him, I learned Marino went to DePaul, and was on the basketball team in the seventies (#34.) His team photo is the only one without Ray Meyer in it - "The Coach" said the team was practicing lousy that day, and refused to be in the picture.

3. He's a proud dad. He wore a Navy sweatshirt on the day of our interview. When I asked him if he was a former serviceman, he said no, that his daughter was a Navy pilot, and proceeded to point out the pictures of her in his office and tell stories.

4. He knows what he's doing. A retired police officer with years in the Counterterrorism unit, Marino is definitely the guy to go to if DePaul was ever faced with a major emergency.

"This job was created, I think, due to what happened at Virginia Tech and Northern Illnois," said Marino, who bears the title of Assistant Director of Emergency Management, and has been working at DePaul for eight months. "My job is to create emergency plans and make assessments of buildings - how easy would it be for all of DePaul to get out of this building? How easy would it be for a bad guy to get in?" Marino also helps create plans for each individual office at DePaul, so they know what to do in case of an emergency. He hopes to create a Student Emergency Response Team in the next year - a group of students who would be trained in how to help in case of an emergency - make phone calls, block off streets, help faculty and staff with lockdown procedures, and help promote safety on campus through posters and conversations.

"My job, it's really to be the bad guy," says Marino. He says he inconveniences people, with his plans and what if scenarios. But really, "I see the big picture. You have to be prepared for anything to happen."

Why That Annoying, Blaring Message Board Just Might Save Your Life

So I'm sure you've been sitting in class and you've heard it - that high pitched, louder-than-the-voice-of-God automated speech from Public Safety that goes, "This is a test. If this was an actual emergency..." and then it goes off, mercifully. You return to your class, your daydreaming, your Web surfing, glad to not have to be bothered by it again, but, Heaven forbid, two minutes later, there it is again! High-pitched noise, green flashing lights, and that creepy humanoid voice: "This is only a test..."

Then on Tuesday night, I was alone in a Mac lab in the Loop, and a different message started blaring - about how it was "now safe to return to the building." Did I miss a bomb threat? A mass evacuation? I had no idea.

Frustrated, I decided to go to Public Safety and find out what all the fuss was about.

What is it? It's the new DePaul safety message board system. It's purpose is to evacuate DePaul quickly and safely if a major event ever happens, like a bomb threat, an active shooter on campus, or a fire. In the case of a fire, the system message would actually be louder than the fire alarm - going right along with my "voice of God" analogy. It can also be used in case of severe weather, to alert the university community. It was implemented in the spring quarter of last year, and the first test was this fall. It will be tested one week every quarter - four days in the Loop and two days in Lincoln Park, with afternoon and evenings tests so that the maximum of the university is reached. There are also speakers in the dorm hallways, in every building DePaul owns and operates, in the quad and the parking lots, and in all atletic facilities, including Wish Field. The system is expandable, too, so if DePaul buys more property, the system can go in place there as well.

"You can't assume it's going to work - you have to test it," says Bob Wachowski. "If you don't test it, and then something happens, people will get angry, asking us 'Why didn't you test?' " Wachowski says that the main complaint about issues is that people were not notified, like in the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings. Our message system, Wachowski says, is the best way to make sure everyone is notified.

Reporting a Crime to Public Safety: A How-To Guide

Most of this information was taken from the new DePaul Public Safety Web site, http://publicsafety.depaul.edu/index.asp

The main way to report a crime on any of DePaul's campuses is to call, which will put you in touch with Public Safety officers that can help you. The Public Safety offices are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Of course, you can also call 911 to report emergencies.

So, your first step would be to call. The number you call depends on where you are.

Here are the main numbers for the Public Safety departments:

Lincoln Park: (773)325-7777
Loop: (312) 362-8400
Oak Forest: (708) 614-4807
Grayslake: (847) 665-4000

The Naperville, O'Hare and Rolling Meadows campuses only have non-emergency numbers listed for their police and fire departments. Why a need for the police or fire department would not be an emergency, I have no idea.

Anyways, those numbers are:

Naperville: (630) 420-6666 (police) and (630) 420-6142 (fire)
Rolling Meadows: (847) 255-2416 (police) and (847)397-3352 (fire)
O'Hare: (847) 391-5400 (police) and (847) 391-5333 (fire)

If you don't have a cell phone with you when a crime occurs, you can also run to one of the blue emergency light stations around campus - hitting the button on those lights connects you to the office, and from there, an officer will communicate by phone.

After you've reached an officer, explain where you are and what's happening, and an officer or member of the Chicago Police department will be dispatched to help you. Last year, the record for a Public Safety officer reaching the scene of a crime was "in under five minutes," a figure Bob Wachowski gave in an interview that I conducted for The DePaulia last year.

Meet your friendly neighborhood public safety director

Welcome to the DePaul Crimes on Campus blog. I hope this is a place where you come often to find the latest crime news and information. In the coming weeks, I will give you safety tips, tell you about the different features of DePaul's Public Safety Web site, keep you updated on crime happenings and statistics on campus, and introduce you to some of the key faces in the Public Safety department at DePaul.

For this first post, I interviewed Bob Wachowski, the Public Safety Director. He oversees everything about public safety and helps run the CAPS meetings,works with other safety officers to run the fire awareness campaigns, and works on implementing new safety plans on campus. He graduated from DePaul in 1983 and took a job as a public safety officer, and started working as the director 10 years ago.

Q: How did you get interested in the Public Safety field?
A: Law enforcement always interested me, and I enjoyed DePaul a lot as a student - so much that I never left! Over the years, I held every public safety office imaginable and just kept getting promoted.

Q: How did the Public Safety office get started?
A: Some time in the 1970s, there was a murder on DePaul's campus - a student-on-student murder. I wasn't here then, but I heard about it, and public safety programs came out of that.

Q: What's been your best day on the job?
A: Every day, because every day is different. You can come into work with a whole plan for your day, and then as soon as you walk in the door, something happens, and your plan is gone.

Q: What's been the worst day on the job?
A: Whenever we've had a major crime on campus, because somebody gets hurt - we don't want to see that. In the past, we have had hate crimes and sexual assaults.

Q: What are some of the most common crimes Public Safety has to deal with?
A: Thefts are big - especially in this economy, people are pickpocketing and stealing a lot more. Students also leave their stuff unattended. If you set up your laptop and walk away for a second, or set down your purse, your things could be gone instantly. You really need to be aware of your surroundings.

Q: If a student is interested in working with Public Safety, what are some tips you have for them?
A: Go to school and get a criminal justice background, and intern with a law enforcement agency if you can. Also, come and talk to the Public Safety officers here at DePaul.

Q: What are three major mistakes students make that cause them to be key targets for crime?
A: Walking alone at night, leaving possessions unattending, and not being aware of their surroundings.

Q: How can students get involved in Public Safety?
A: Come to the CAPS meetings - they're organized once a quarter, and are a good way for students to learn about crimes on campus and voice their concerns.