As the Fall semester has seen multiple violent incidents near Main Campus, Temple’s Department of Public Safety has made several upgrades to the frequency of communication methods in order to keep the community safe.
The department continues to post online and send messages to students on incidents that take place near campus, but they have also tried to apply feedback into upgrades to the TUalert system to provide more context on events that took place near campus and received citywide media coverage.
On Oct. 2, a shooting near a football field on 11th Street near Cecil B. Moore Avenue resulted in a bullet grazing a 14-year-old and another lodged in a student’s apartment in The View at Montgomery, an off-campus apartment complex, 6ABC reported.
Two days later, a man was shot twice in the hand on Broad Street near Cecil B. Moore Avenue, just steps from Morgan Hall. The victim was transported to Temple University Hospital, where he was placed in stable condition, FOX29 reported.
Vice President for Public Safety Jennifer Griffin released a statement to the Temple community that the Temple University Police Department had increased patrols in areas with high volumes of pedestrian traffic as a result of the incident.
Griffin also reached out to Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, which owns and oversees the football field where the Oct. 2 shooting took place, to discuss safety measures and concerns, Griffin wrote in the announcement.
Griffin, DPS director of communications Matt Petrillo and the rest of the department put out announcements like this after they can validate all the information they have received about the situation, Griffin told The Temple News.
In the first weeks of October, police also began searching for a man accused of harassing a student on West Norris Street near 18th Street on Oct. 4 and inappropriately touching another student on West Norris near 15th Street on Oct. 9, 6ABC reported.
DPS released a statement on Oct. 12, eight days after the first incident occurred, when they were informed of both assaults. TUPD officers, detectives and bike patrols increased in the area following the incident, Griffin wrote.
On Oct. 19, the Philadelphia Police Department arrested a 29-year-old man for indecent exposure and assault in connection to the reports near Main Campus.
However, there are limits to what DPS can inform and update students about. In the incidents that have taken place in October, all the investigations are being handled by PPD, which limits the information that Temple receives.
“Although we stay in contact with Philadelphia Police Department and their investigators, if these [cases] are not related to a Temple University student, or faculty, we get their updates through email like with case reviews, but we’re not on top of it every day,” Griffin said. “If there were a student involved or faculty involved, we would be heavily involved with it.”
TUPD and DPS have other active cases in their own departments to invest resources toward, so they don’t have a policy to continually follow up on cases that aren’t theirs, Griffin added.
The announcements that go out to the Temple community are also linked on the DPS website, allowing anyone to view them.
Griffin has recently hosted forums with Temple parents, hearing that a lot of them follow safety announcements through the website, so she knows other people are utilizing them outside of students and faculty, Griffin said.
DPS is trying to improve current messaging systems by utilizing Temple community feedback.
“We’re always open to feedback from our students, faculty and staff on what’s the best way to communicate,” Griffin said. “We are really trying to push out information that we have validated.”
A recent example was an upgrade to the TUalert system, which warns students about crimes or threats in the area via email or text. In September, the system increased the frequency of the messages during ongoing situations and began color-coding incidents based on severity, Petrillo said.
When students, faculty, staff and parents receive TUalerts through email, their message will be marked with either red, green or yellow alert status. Red denotes an emergency incident, yellow signifies an update on the incident or other information and green means the incident is resolved and the area has been cleared.
The idea was brought to DPS by Temple University Safety Advocates, a parent-led group committed to promoting safety and well-being in the community, Petrillo said.
In addition to parent feedback, Petrillo also believes maintaining a relationship with local media, as well as regular meetings that started this semester with Temple Student Government’s new administration, has increased transparency and messaging with the community.
TSG and other student organizations have regularly met with DPS to discuss ideas and share feedback with the department, said Nate Weinberg, a junior public relations major and the director of campus safety at TSG.
Last semester, Weinberg managed social media and press for Keep Us Safe TU, a student-run group that posts campus safety issues. KUSTU gained notoriety among students for being outspoken about Temple’s communication methods and administration. The account currently has close to 12,000 followers on Instagram.
Weinberg believes there have been some recent off-campus incidents that students could have been alerted to sooner, but he feels that conversations between DPS and students have been more productive this semester and content online has been more engaging.
TSG also held a campus safety town hall on Oct. 25 sharing safety tips, including guest speakers from DPS, like Griffin, and offering a question and answer session.
“For some people, public safety is always going to be a big concern at Temple, but I feel like if we’re able to provide the resources and people know that the resources are there, then it could ease the concern a little bit,” Weinberg said.
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