Christina Domenico | An alert to alert, not to alarm

Last Monday, at 7:36 p.m., Philadelphia police responded to shots fired at 39th and Ludlow streets, about a block away from Hamilton Court, Chestnut Hall and the Hub. A black Escalade drove off from the scene, later apprehended by police. Seven casings were found, no injuries reported.

At approximately 10:30 p.m. that same evening, I received a breaking news alert from The Daily Pennsylvanian about the aforementioned incident - "Shots fired at 39th and Ludlow" read the subject line. Oh great, I thought, just a block away from where I live. No, I wasn't home at the time, Mom and Dad.

I would have been more careful - and so would have a number of students living in that area - had we received some form of notification about the shooting in a more far-reaching and timely matter. After all, most students don't subscribe to the DP's breaking-news alerts, so without an official message sent out to the University community, there was no way to know what had happened without glancing at the DP the next day. Even though this particular event didn't require panic and immediate action, Penn should have let students know what had happened, and that it was contained.

Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush told me, "We didn't [send out a PennAlert] for the shooting because we had other factors at play. We were certain that the individuals responsible had escaped by car, and we had that car in custody. We were certain we had that situation in control."

I applaud the Philadelphia Police for responding quickly to the situation, but the Penn community couldn't have known that at the time without the news alerts. Without the immediate need for a PennAlert - which has only (and fortunately) been used once since its inception - students, faculty and staff were in the dark about the situation.

According to Rush, the PennAlert system was activated after the Dec. 19 home invasion and sexual assault at 44th Street because the culprit was on the loose (and still is). This posed a potential threat to students and faculty in the area.

But there's a difference between alerting students to a dangerous situation and raising awareness about what's going on. While PennAlert is designed only to be implemented during extremely critical situations, a system should still be in place to inform students if a crime occurs on their doorstep, like last Monday's.

College sophomore Philip Cawkwell lives on the same block where the shooting occurred, but he was out at the time of the incident. His roommate texted him about what happened, but he still wasn't sure about the details until he got home later. "There's been three or four shootings around here in the last year. This is the first one that really hits home, so it definitely makes me feel uneasy," he said.

Because he doesn't subscribe to DP alerts, Cawkwell had no way of learning the facts. Even without a direct threat to students, the University should be responsible for making students aware of what's going on within the Penn Patrol zone.

Rush also pointed out that there is a "difference between a man who's targeting a certain individual and a madman on the loose with a gun."

Even so, that doesn't mean a student can't get stuck in the crossfire without proper warning. Seniors may remember January 2006, when then-Engineering sophomore Mari Oishi was shot in the leg by a stray bullet at 38th and Sansom. Sure, a PennAlert couldn't have prevented that from happening, but the incident shows that accidents happen, even without madmen on the loose.

I know that violent crime is down in the City, that DPS played a major role in curbing violent crime around campus in 2008 and that in any circumstance I still can't expect to live in complete peace. What I would like to expect, however, is a timely heads-up about any potentially dangerous situation near campus - particularly those within the Penn patrol zone. Even if it's not a threat, we should know if something happens just down the street.

And so do others. "I think one way or another, students should have known about this, and it should have been from the University," Cawkwell said.

Christina Domenico is a College senior from North Wildwood, N.J. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Tuesdays. Her email address is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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