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.