TO: Vincent Boudreau, president of The City College of New York\
FROM: Randy Barrera, Undergraduate
DATE:2/24/2023
SUBJECT: Questionable Security
Security should be one of the priorities in an educational environment. Students shouldn’t be in danger as they’re on campus or just arriving. During my first week coming into the school, I saw the lack of guards around campus and usually, there’s only one at the stand. Observing the guards, the pattern shows their role is to just let cars in and out of the campus, without checking on who is entering the school grounds. Security is expected to be very very high because of the location of the school and my family didn’t even want me to go to this school because of its area’s reputation.
Threats
Precaution was taken as there was a potential school shooting at CCNY; with an email that got sent out revealing a fellow student, Din Bajrektarevic. Shocking to receive this warning and it made me wonder how easily the school can fall to a tragedy such as this. The main reason for his arrest was because he posted “shoot up the school” on social media. According to Pollack’s (2008) trials:
One student who knew of a weapon on school property was reluctant to come forward because he expected a negative reaction: “When you say something, you get in trouble or interrogated by teachers. (p.8)
This shows that the community at CCNY is very strong and connected with each other. Having the students in assisting the security could be a benefit. Such as spreading the word on incidents.
An incident that others also faced was a time during the 4th week of the fall semester. I first noticed when a non-student entered the campus and was selling his candy to others. He didn’t give personal space and would touch you so you would stop. Since his solo run failed, he brought more people 3-5 and would hope to catch someone who would stop and eventually surround them. That’s how Jason Lin says he got robbed “legally”. He posted on the CCNY Student Life app on October 27, 2022 and another victim, Muhammed Irfan mentioned how $20 got taken from him in the same way as Lin got $60 taken away from him by pressure. I was still shocked because these guys were lurking near the entrance of the school and just picked out students as they came from home or were leaving school. I don’t go through the path on Convent Ave. This may be ongoing or not for I haven’t witnessed it again since my schedule is different and the route to go home.
There was a moment when I went around the area to get some food for myself. After my sandwich was done, I took it to eat in front of that church that’s near the campus on 145 ST. A few minutes after, my soda bottle got snatched by a random person who wanted to shake my hand. That was on the first day of school as well and made me wary of ever going outside of campus to eat after wondering what else could happen if I go alone.
End Game
A solution to all this is just simple. A patrol car going around the area would be good enough. A patrol every hour at least. There also has to be a security guard at every entrance and exits of the building. Some students enter an exit only as people who are actually leaving, opens for unintentionally them. These don’t seem to require much action just a different routine to be created once and to be repeated every day. To prevent future students from facing what we did in the fall semester, please be mindful of others’ safety on campus and around the campus. There is no need to have additional victims.
Reference
Pollack, Modzeleski, W., & Rooney, G. (2008). Prior knowledge of potential school-based violence : information students learn may prevent a targeted attack. United States Secret Service.
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