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Opinion |
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Staff Editorial:
With increase in crime, public safety needs help
Two vehicles have been reported stolen from MHCC parking lots since the beginning of fall quarter and, in a two-day period from Oct. 9 until Oct. 11, five golf carts were stolen from an on-campus construction site.
In addition, since the beginning of the quarter until Oct. 11, there were 13 other thefts from vehicles reported to public safety. Keep in mind this is just what has been reported to Public Safety. Crime in the parking lots seems to have increased at MHCC, most of these crimes happen in the parking lots, and the reason seems to be a lack of patrol.
Interim Public Safety Lead Officer Wayne Feagle even said it himself: There is a lack of manpower.
Currently, there should be two officers on duty at all times and there are only a total of seven public safety officers. But if there’s one officer patrolling on the south side of campus and one officer is in the parking lot by the fountains, who is watching the parking lot by the Child Development Center?
That’s right . . . no one.
Once a year the Gresham Police Department and the MHCC Public Safety program perform a “car check.” During this check they walk through the parking lots and check vehicle for valuables in plain sight and send a letter to the registered owner of the vehicle about the risk of car thefts. Wouldn’t it be better if the Public Safety program got some extra manpower for the beginning of each term and did this themselves or gave a seminar on how to protect yourself from theft? Not just do a check once a year and send out wakeup calls?
No one is saying that Public Safety is doing a bad job. In fact, overall crime on campus is consistently low. Since the beginning of fall quarter, only one issue logged in the crime log was a non-theft. (This was a mutual combat situation between two female GED students.)
Public Safety has done a great job securing the Academic Center, but since crime in the parking lots seems to have increased, perhaps they should place more emphasis on their parking lot patrols. If this were to happen, or if campus security was upgraded with the installation of cameras, crime should go down.
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