Fullerton College being an open campus means that anyone can step foot on our grounds regardless if they’re a student or not. However, with such a lax environment within the campus it can welcome some unwanted visitors.
Just last month on Feb. 1, 2017, Fullerton Police Department apprehended a suspect who allegedly groped two students on campus and a bomb scare at the NOCCCD office building occurs within the same day.
In light of all of these incidents, how safe do you feel on campus?
Eric Nguyen, a communications major, attends both afternoon and evening classes and he feels that as a male he feels personally safe, but he empathizes with how a female might not feel as safe as he does.
When asked what the students should do to try and protect themselves, Nguyen replied, “I think some students don’t have the maturity to police themselves. I’m not saying security needs to be more strict but I do believe they should be more aware and make some more rounds around campus.”
Nguyen continued with remarks to campus safety saying that they do not make him feel any safer nor at risk of danger on campus. “They don’t really enforce the rules of no smoking, skateboarding and so on, so they should expand their rounds to areas where there are small little pockets of that are not monitored because I feel it’s where most, if not all, the incidents happen.”
Rachel Munguia, a criminal justice major, felt that despite all the incidents that have happened, she feels safe on campus.
“I feel like it’s generally a safe and friendly environment and there’s always security to be found even when getting out of late classes.” Munguia said.
Munguia added, “People should watch their backs keep their eyes peeled anyway… the campus is not dangerous, rather there are occasional attacks by those certain individuals. [These] can be prevented if people are more aware of their surroundings.”
Aside from more patrolling in smaller areas on campus from campus safety, Munguia says that, the school could add more lighting around campus to alleviate some fear in the students, more specifically for the students who attend night classes or get off at a later time.
It’s a lot easier to say that we feel safe as the incidents don’t happen to us personally.
The fear of anything dangerous ever happening to us is always in the back of our heads – whether that’s if we might hit some drunk person in the middle of Downtown Fullerton on a Saturday night or if a school shooter will ever come to our campus.
We’re usually aware of our own surroundings, so it’s hard to say whether or not we do feel safe especially on our own campus. Early last semester, campus safety landed themselves in some hot water with a video of the actions a security guard using excessive force for a man who was just smoking a cigarette on campus, who are we to trust?
Though campus safety had the incident last semester, we should put our faith in them more than ever especially with incidents that happen almost annually like our infamous gropers on campus. One bad apple does not necessarily spoil the bunch.
If there’s any problems that you might see on campus, or if there are any services you may need, go to campus safety’s website, or call their 24/7 emergency line at (714) 992-7777.
