“It seems like it’s almost every other day that I’m getting a text from Morgan about somebody getting robbed or something. I don’t know what’s going on up there,” said Alexis Webb. The 22-year-old Webb graduated from Morgan State University in 2012 with a degree in Journalism.
As a requirement under federal law, specifically the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, U.S. colleges and universities must “issue timely warnings about crimes that pose a serious threat to students and employees.” Enacted by Congress and signed into law by President George Bush in 1990 as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, the law was renamed after Jeanne Ann Clery, a 19-year-old student attending Lehigh University, a private school located in Pennsylvania, who was raped and murdered in her residence hall in 1986. The text alert Webb receives is a part of that law. Because she is still a resident of the Hillen Road community and has friends that attend Morgan State, she remains a subscriber to the mobile alert system.
Due to a series of highly publicized crimes, including a recent shooting and a cannibal attack in May, attributed to Morgan State’s campus, many wonder if crime is on the rise and if the school is still a safe place for students to attend.
“Morgan State University is a very safe school,” said Adrian Wiggins, executive director of Morgan State University’s Office of Campus and Public Safety. Working for Morgan’s police department for the last seven years, Wiggins says the media and the school’s students, faculty, and staff have not always aided in the college’s crime reputation.
“I don’t think we have a healthy understanding of what crime is on and around campus,” Wiggins added. “We’re not concerned about crime until something happens, and then when something happens the knee jerk reaction is ‘Morgan is unsafe,’ ‘The police department doesn’t do anything;’ ‘Crime is rampant.’”
The public safety office has just released its 2012 Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report. The report gives statistics about crime on Morgan’s campus, on non-campus buildings and property and also public property, from 2009 to 2011. According to the 46-page report, robbery rose 18 percent from 2009 to 2011, while burglary and aggravated assault dropped considerably.
In order to have an accurate scope of the amount of crime on and near Morgan’s campus including 2012, the public will have to wait until 2013. Statistics about crime is shared through the Baltimore Police Department, Morgan State’s campus police department, and also other entities that verify the information before it is published in the annual safety report. This process takes nearly a year to complete, which is why there is gap between the years the report is released and the actual year that the crimes take place.
Although Morgan State has received a substantial amount of news coverage lately, mainly due to crime related activities, one resident, who has lived in the Hillen Road community for over a decade, is not worried about safety.
“From what I’ve seen, [the] Hillen Road community is pretty safe. Of course, you have your rough patches here and there, but that’s to be expected in Baltimore,” said 22-year-old Louis Skinner. Though Skinner, a freelance photographer and videographer, maintains that the community surrounding Morgan State is reasonably safe, he does note that the Northwood Shopping Center, located in north east Baltimore between Argonne Drive and Hillen Road, isn’t the safest place.
“There’s no real value in that shopping center, so people hang out there and do stupid stuff, “he said.
The shopping center has experienced an increased volume in police, mainly due to the murder of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. in 2008. Harris was shot outside of New Haven Lounge, located in the middle of Northwood Shopping Center.
Skinner has friends that attend Morgan State and they keep him informed of the happenings of the campus.
“Every time I hear something that’s about what’s happening at Morgan, it’s nothing positive. I’m not sure if people just like talking about negative stuff, but every time I hear ‘Did you hear about what happened at Morgan?’ something negative follows afterwards,” said Skinner.
Wiggins and the public safety office contend that everyone must be active in driving down crime at Morgan.
“We all have to work together. We all have a part in this. We tie it all together,” he said, making reference of the police, “but the citizens play a very big role. Without them taking responsibility for their campus, crime isn’t going to get any better.”