Eduardo Alvarez/ Contributing Writer
The stabbing incident on Feb. 9 has raised many questions regarding campus security. After the two suspects attacked a 74-year-old man, they tried to escape and entered campus grounds. Immediately, students received a vague alert: “police activity ”
While the issue was quickly solved, I think it’s clear that our safety measures could use some fine tuning.
FIU is located in a safe area, and incidents rarely happen, but when they do, they threaten the thousands of people that live, work and study at our 342-acre campus. Tragedies only need one chance to happen; one crack to seep through.
FIU police runs an app called FIU Guardian that asks the user to create a safety profile, which gives police useful personal information so they can more readily assist you.
It also includes a safety timer that will notify designated “Guardians,” or app references, if you find yourself in a sketchy place for too long. And most importantly a panic button, which will show police your GPS location in case of an emergency.
Unfortunately, not many students seem to know about the app, and those who have heard about it complained of the lag it gives their smartphones.
“I want my safety and the safety of my fellow students to be less oblique and far more precise than it is now, said Wellington Rodriguez, a junior majoring in history. “Our alerts should be able to tell us what kind of danger there is and how best to deal with it.”
I agree. Different emergencies require different and sometimes opposite actions. If there is a fire, you’d leave the building. If there is an intruder, you’d take refuge in the building. Knowing what we’re up against is the first step towards safety.
We’d also do well to remember how close we are to the general population, who is generally, but not always, harmless. Our short distance from busy streets and neighborhoods make incidents like the one on Feb. 9 possible.
If you are a suspect escaping police and FIU is in your way, you are probably going to enter the campus — with your knife still bloodied and your adrenaline still blinding you from from any and all common sense.
To ensure these things don’t happen, we should increase vigilance on campus, not only from police officers — of which there should be more – but from students and staff. In short, our security is the responsibility of all of us.
Police are the front line, but our cooperation and vigilance ultimately determines whether they are successful or not.
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The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of Panther Press Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.
Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash.
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