A String of Incidents Revolving Around UD Campus
(Picture courtesy of Department of Public Safety, udayton.edu)
James Tong | Opinions Editor
Several recent incidents on campus have kept Public Safety more engaged than in the past. Among the incidents was a report of an unhoused woman asking for help, raising concerns about safety in the vicinity of St. Joseph’s Hall.
It was this incident that prompted the meeting by Communication Department Chairman , Chad Painter.
Other incidents included: a man dressed in camo carrying a large, black bag walking near Frericks to the chapel, another man walking from St. Joe’s to Kennedy Union (KU) yelling at students, a third man entering a classroom to ask students for their personal information, a fourth man being disorderly in the vicinity of the law building, and an “unhoused” woman walking into St. Joe’s looking for necessities.
Painter then goes on to recall the details of what happened with the unhoused woman that occurred on September 23.
“When I walked in [to the office (St. Joes 121)], Laura Toomb and Kim Kollin were in the hallway talking to a woman. One of them motioned me over which is where I then discovered, ‘Oh, there’s a situation going on here.’ We talked to the woman for a little bit, she wasn’t being aggressive or anything like that. She came in and said that she had heard, or someone had told her that she could get a shower in this building. She just needed help. We talked to her for a little bit, and I said to Kim, ‘Hey, why don’t you go call public safety?’ because we said to the woman that, ‘We’re not trying to get you into trouble. That’s not what this is, but, we can’t help you. They’ll have resources that you can use.’ At that point we sat her down in the front office, gave her a bottle of water and we waited for, probably three to five minutes. Public Safety came, and dealt with the situation.”
Savalas Kidd, Assistant Vice President and Chief of Police at UD Department of Public Safety, followed up on the woman’s status and said that an officer transported her to a women’s shelter.
Painter explained that incidents such as this one increased in September. The majority of incidents have occurred around St. Joe’s and the Chapel of Immaculate Conception, as these two popular buildings are basically the entrance of UD from the more localized Brown Street area that is home to non-UD affiliated shops.
Prior to the instance above, two separate incidents occurred on Sept. 5 around the same entrance of campus.
One of the incidents took place on the south side of Joseph E. Keller Hall, the law building located between East Stewart Gardens and Roesch Library. Initially, officers were unable to find a man who, according to a Public Safety incident report was, “urinating on UD property and making inappropriate gestures and comments towards the students.”
About 20 minutes later, two female UD students contacted UDPD in the afternoon. The two students also claimed that the man made no aggressive behaviors directed toward them nor direct comments. The man was claimed to have been seen walking onto campus and a search was conducted after a description was provided by the students.
With the helpful description provided by the students, officers found the man who matched the description near Kettering Labs. The man, who has no affiliation with UD, had an open can of beer with him and was removed from campus by officers where they drove him to Walgreens on Wayne Avenue. He was issued a warning about the open beer can and public urination.
Yet the day for Public Safety didn’t end there. About an hour after their Keller Hall incident came to a close, another report was made, this time from St. Joe’s.
Initially reported by Dr. Robert (Bob) Joseph who was teaching in the J.P. Humanities Center, relayed his report to Kollin who then contacted Public Safety about what police reports described as, “a suspicious person going around gathering students’ information and claiming to work with the University’s internship program.”
The man was a former UD student who identified himself by name and asked Joseph if he could talk to students about internship opportunities.
“I said yes,” Joseph said. “While we were making small talk before the start time, I asked if he was a CMM major, assuming he was affiliated with our department’s internship placement program. He said he was, and when I asked him what his concentration was, he said ‘public speaking,’ which isn’t a concentration in our department. When I gave him a weird look at this answer, he backtracked and said he didn’t have a concentration.”
The man went into the classroom and proceeded to hand out slips of paper that asked the students for their personal information such as their name, phone number, email, and summer residency. Joseph thought this suspicious and confiscated the slips that the students had written on.
“So I took the cards, told [him] that if he could email me verifying who he was I would give them back to him. He left, and I never heard from him again,” Joseph said. “I don’t know how legitimate his organization is, but the deliberate presentation of himself as a UD undergrad struck me as highly unethical. I shredded the cards and emailed all of my classes telling them not to fill out any forms [he] gives them. I also informed my department staff about him, who in turn called Public Safety.”
According to one of Joseph’s students, the man had come to another class that student was in, where this time, he left with the papers that contained the students’ information. These situations were reported after the man had left the building, prompting Public Safety to conduct a follow-up investigation. As of Oct. 22, there has been no update that has been made.
While we have no direct witness testimony or official documents of the man in camo, there have been many students and faculty that are aware of the incident. In an email (sent out Sept. 24) provided by Painter, the man was wearing camo and a facemask while also carrying a large backpack. On Sept. 23, the man was seen walking toward the Chapel, where he sat his backpack down and went into the bushes. At some point he was approached by a fire inspector who spoke to the man, who then turned and walked toward Brown Street. The email stated that a witness claimed to have seen Public Safety (and possibly Dayton Police) talking with the man. Flyer News is currently not aware of any new details at this time.
In that same email, it was revealed that about two weeks prior to being sent, several students reported that a man was walking on campus and yelling at students. The man went from the walkway between St. Joe’s and the Chapel, to Heritage Coffeehouse toward the Science Center.
“We’re seeing a trend where students and faculty are certainly involved. There are beginning to be concerns about safety and security of [St. Joe’s],” Painter said. “This is my ninth year at UD. To my knowledge, this is the first time that an incident such as this (the unhoused woman) has occurred, at least in our building, right? So I’m willing to kind of chalk it up to an anomaly. If it continues to become a trend, then I become more concerned, but at least to me, it hasn’t reached anywhere near that point.”
“The community’s safety is our top priority, but safety is everyone’s job,” Kidd said in an interview with Flyer News. “It’s a cooperative effort because our officers can’t be everywhere, all the time, so we ask students, faculty and staff to be our eyes and ears if there is something going on Public Safety needs to know about or can assist with.”
Kidd also responded to a few questions regarding the incidents:
1: Why were Dayton police not called to assist with any of these incidents?
University of Dayton Public Safety officers are fully licensed officers in the State of Ohio, meaning they have completed the same training requirements and have the same certifications as officers from the Dayton Police Department and all other surrounding municipalities. While we do have a mutual aid agreement with Dayton police, there would be no reason to call on them in these three situations which were all handled without issue by UD Public Safety officers.
Public Safety does occasionally use City of Dayton police resources. Dayton police department officers are generally utilized for larger events such as UD basketball games, family weekend, St. Patrick’s Day, etc.
2: Do any of these incidents give Public Safety pause, especially after the scare not two years ago of a student who was threatening to shoot up campus?
The UD Department of Public Safety stands ready to respond to any emergent situation on campus. The safety of our UD community and the surrounding area is our top priority, which is one of the reasons the University utilizes a sworn police force operating 24/7. Being an urban campus, there are always going to be people in and around campus.
As previously stated, we encourage students to be active participants in the safety of campus, by downloading and using the Flyer Safe app, keeping their eyes and ears open to anything or anyone suspicious and reporting it immediately to Public Safety. We also encourage students to utilize the crime prevention information and emergency preparedness guidelines on our website.
3: Can you provide a brief overview of the incidents?
One incident involved a male subject that was disorderly. Public Safety issued him a criminal trespass warning and he was subsequently transported off campus.
Another situation involved a former UD student who said he was looking for student interns. This situation was reported after the subject had left the building and prompted further follow-up by Public Safety.
There was another situation where an unhoused female was looking for help with resources, Public Safety transported her to the women’s shelter for further assistance.
4: Can you walk me through how the department handled these situations?
Each situation is different, the way a situation is handled depends on the facts and circumstances at the time of the event. In these cases, one required enforcement, one prompted a follow-up investigation and in the other, the officers took on a non-enforcement role.
5: What steps does Public Safety take when someone enters the classroom unannounced and not a UD student?
It all depends on what information that Public Safety has at the time of the event. Also, it depends on the facts and circumstances at the time of the event. In this case Public Safety was not made aware until after the person left the area.
6: For the case of the unhoused women, what resources did you provide to connect her with a shelter (if she was in fact unhoused)?
She was transported by an officer to the women’s shelter.
7: Are you able to disclose her status after the situation?
I do not have any further information.
8: What measures are currently in place to enhance campus safety?
There are many measures in place to enhance campus safety. The following list is not exhaustive, but contains a few measures:
1. We encourage all UD community members to download and use the Flyer Safe App.
2. Public Safety is staffed 24/7 with OPOTA certified police officers who patrol campus and the surrounding areas.
3. Surveillance cameras around campus.
4. Directed patrols by officers depending on current trends or needs of the campus community.
5. Safety training for students, faculty and staff.
6. Safety Alerts: including campuswide emergency communication via email and text, Safety Advisory and Flyer Aware emails.
7. Officers on bike and foot patrols
8: Is there any feedback from the community that you’re able to disclose?
No.
9: Are you able to provide me with any records or incident reports?
Yes, they will be sent.
10: Is there anything you’d like to add?
The community’s safety is our top priority, but safety is everyone’s job. It’s a cooperative effort because our officers can’t be everywhere, all the time, so we ask students, faculty and staff to be our eyes and ears if there is something going on Public Safety needs to know about or can assist with.