Blue Light on campus

ECU Blue Lights are located around both campuses

In the first days of this month, East Carolina University has experience high reports of crime, shocking students across campus.

From Feb. 1 to Feb. 9, the ECU Police Department has filed 31 different crime reports, according to their records. Only four of those crimes did not occur within the immediate vicinity or on the main campus of ECU. Crime is down slightly from this same point last year, when the department had 35 reports.

Over the same time period, from Feb. 1 to Feb. 9, the ECU Health Sciences campus, had no reported crimes to ECUPD. The ECU Health Sciences campus includes the Brody School of Medicine and other medically related offices.

According to Mulatu Wubneh, an ECU geography professor, the areas surrounding the medical campus and Vidant Medical Center were specifically designed that way.

“I remember when they were discussing about the land use plan of the area (medical campus), it was agreed there would not be activities that would not be medically related,” said Wubneh.

The area surrounding Vidant Medical Center and the Health Sciences Campus is intended for “Medical Institutional” purposes. According to the city of Greenville code of ordinances, a “Medical Institutional” zone or “MI” is meant for buildings like hospitals or other healthcare-oriented businesses.

While the area around the medical campus is intended for one major purpose of healthcare, the areas around main campus are more diverse. A majority of the area surrounding ECU’s main campus is classified as residential single family home or zoned for commercial use. According to Wubneh, this difference creates a key issue.

“There is a lot of activity going on the East Campus (main campus) compared to West Campus (medical campus),” said Wubneh.

With a larger concentration of population living in and around main campus, Wubneh said main campus is more likely to see more crime. With the medical campus having a specific use and relatively low residential population, opportunities for crime are not as high. Wubneh said the number of breaking and entering crimes are higher in and around main campus because of the high residential population than compared to the medical campus.

Between 2012 and 2014, main campus has experienced more crime than the medical campus. According to the ECU Police Crime Statistics, in major crime categories like rape, aggravated assault or burglary, incidents were rare and very uncommon. The number of crime reports regarding main campus are much higher. In the same time period, from 2012 to 2014, there were seven reports of rape, one report of aggravated assault and 30 cases of robbery.

“I feel we have two very safe campuses,” said ECU Police Public Information Officer Chris Sutton.

ECU’s campus safety was given an “C” rating, according to Niche.com, a website that ranks universities based on different criteria. Sutton and others do point out that main campus does house a large number of people and that can contribute to the higher numbers of crime.

(1) comment

TomMartin

It is more tragic when a minor or teenager commits a crime. When this happens, when a minor is arrested, it can impact the entire family since a parent or guardian must also be involved in the process. Many families resort to experienced lawyers, like the Fairfax lawyers from the Taylor Law Company, because they always represent their clients professionally and try to get criminal charges dismissed or reduced, depending on the situation.

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