By Nicole Haley
Lindsay Myers noticed a difference when she moved from her freshmen residence hall to the Columbus Avenue side of campus. The junior pharmacy major, who regularly strolls through Carter Park where an 11-year-old was shot Sunday night, said making her home on the side of the tracks closer to Roxbury, even with NUPD just next door, can be unsettling.
“Living on the other side of campus, you feel a lot safer. It’s more campus-like and you’re surrounded by students,” Myers said.
Myers, who lives in Douglass Park, a Northeastern-friendly building on the side of Davenport B, said she would like to see more security on her side of campus.
“Sometimes I don’t feel safe walking over the [Camden] bridge,” Myers said.
Matthew Brooks, a middler architecture major, also noted “a distinct difference between the two sides of campus.” Brooks, also a Douglass Park resident, said while Northeastern police officers are patrolling, the trouble comes from outside the community.
“I think it’s really more of a city problem,” Brooks said.
Ed Klotzbier, vice president for student affairs, said he has never felt unsafe on any part of Northeastern’s campus from when he was a student in the 1980s to now. Klotzbier said an increased student presence on the Columbus side of campus came recently with the development of buildings and facilities.
“Davenport Commons sits on what used to be an empty lot with damaged cars and broken bottles,” he said.
Vice President for Public Affairs Robert Gittens said the university works hard to keep students safe by patrolling the streets and also reaching out to the surrounding community. He said Northeastern sponsors summer camps and summer job programs to give the kids in the community “something constructive to do.”
“In general, the neighborhood is safe and we want to make sure it stays that way,” Gittens said. He stressed that Northeastern Police will continue to work closely with Boston Police to make sure this happens.
Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and professor of sociology and criminology, said students can also do their own part to ensure safety.
Students should not be scared, he said, but they need to use common sense wherever they go. It’s not a matter of one section of Boston or one side of campus being safer than another, he said.
Levin said Boston has a very low murder rate when compared to other major cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Baltimore. There could be many explanations for the recent surge of violence ranging from gang warfare to the increased irritability of people in the summer to a plain fluke, Levin said, in response to the string of violent incidents in Boston in the past week.
As a boy lay in critical condition at a hospital after the playground shooting in Northeastern’s backyard, another shooting left two men dead and another wounded at Grove Hall, a neighborhood linking Dorchester and Roxbury, at 12:30 Monday morning, the Boston Globe reported. An hour later, a bad drug deal on the Boston Common resulted in a stabbing and another shooting.
“Violence doesn’t distribute itself evenly over a 12-month period,” Levin said. “For the immediate future, students should be extra vigilant no matter where they are in the city.”
Klotzbier said Northeastern’s main priority is making sure students feel safe. He said students living in a city need to be “cognizant of their surroundings.”
“It’s our job to make sure our students fully understand issues surrounding the campus – buddy systems, walking at night, escort systems, walking home from the library,” he said.
Sonya Mariotti, a graduate student studying college student development and counseling, said she does not feel less safe living across the street from the playground shooting in Douglass Park.
Mariotti said students are lucky to have the Northeastern police headquarters nearby and she thinks the officers who patrol do a good job of getting to know people in the surrounding community.
“I just feel like living in a city, these things can happen almost anywhere,” Mariotti said.
