CSULB police under scrutiny

Students and faculty are questioning the efficiency of University Police in relaying information to the Cal State Long Beach community, following a recent attempted abduction of a female student on campus.

"Not only was I shocked to read about this campus crisis in the paper, I was even more disturbed to find that CSULB didn't appear to be doing much about it in terms of educating students about what had taken place," a female CSULB student wrote in a letter published in the Daily Forty-Niner Oct. 23.

Two male suspects allegedly attempted to abduct a woman near Lot 4 Sept. 25. The victim was able to break free and notified campus police.

The same day, University Police issued a press release detailing the incident, along with two composite drawings of the suspects as described by the victim. The information was also released to various news services across the county.

After a two-month investigation, campus police have not made an arrest and are still looking for leads, said Capt. Stan Skipworth of University Police.

But students and faculty at CSULB are still not at ease about what happened.

"I've always felt safe on campus and it seems like the police are here to protect our school," said Belinda Ontiveros, a family and consumer science senior. "But it's surprising the school did not do a higher level of warning us and [tell us] what precautions we should take for this."

Ontiveros, who has lived in the CSULB residence halls for four years, said that if campus officials take action to warn students about potential killer bees, then they should better inform students and faculty about campus crimes.

Information on the attempted abduction reached very few people and some were unaware that the incident even occurred.

Those who were not informed about the incident includes Gary Little, director of housing and residential life at CSULB.

"There were no bulletins posted. I did not hear about the incident," Little said. "Anytime information is given to use and for residence safety, we pass it along."

Two reported sexual assaults occurred on campus in 1999, including one rape, according to University Police crime statistics released this year. In a separate incident Oct. 8, a man broke into the Alpha Phi sorority house. The man fled after a sleeping female student woke to find him standing in the doorway of her room.

"I think that they needed to do more, put stuff up around the school," said Laura Atty, a CSULB junior who lives in the Alpha Phi sorority house. "It's kind of scary, [the abduction] happened in the afternoon."

Cypress College, which has 14, 000 students, was more active than CSULB in warning its campus community about a somewhat similar daytime sexual assault on Sept. 12. In the incident, a female student was abducted at knifepoint, driven off campus and sexually assaulted before escaping, said Marc Posner, Cypress College's public safety spokesman.

The president of Cypress College sent a memorandum to all employees and bulletins were placed around campus the same day.

"We put up a sandwich board at the entrances of the campus with information about the assault," he said. "They were located at each pedestrian entrance."

About 24 flyers were posted at campus entryways and 100 sketches were posted the following day, Posner said. During the week, the campus employed six escorts were available to safely escort students on the campus.

The incident was the first of its kind in almost a decade for Cypress College, Posner said.

"It was extremely important that students be notified," he said. "Awareness is the best way for students to prevent from becoming the victim."

The Daily Forty-Niner reported Sept. 27 that the attempted abduction was also the first incident of its kind at CSULB.

University Police had placed bulletins at the police station and in the University Student Union, but not on the rest of the campus, Skipworth said.

Greg Covey, supervisor of the University Print Shop, said that for an area the size of CSULB, about 500 to 1,000 flyers would be needed to cover the campus, especially high-traffic areas such as Brotman Hall, University Library, University Bookstore and the residence halls.

Covey, who works full time on campus, did not see any police bulletins regarding the incident.

"When things are published for administration, the print shop usually sees it first. We did not get any request from campus police to produce any bulletins," Covey said. "We should have at least gotten something in the faculty mailbox."

Skipworth said he believes University Police did enough to warn students by notifying the media.

"Given the amount of mass media that we had ­ local paper, community newspaper and TV ­ we did what we felt was a good amount of media coverage," he said.

The Long Beach Union, a weekly CSULB newspaper, received the University Police press release but it was not published, said Melody Velasco, the Union's editor in chief.

"I haven't heard much about the abduction," said Robert Garcia, Associated Students Inc. president. "Most of what I know is from the Forty-Niner. There was definitely a lack of information about the case after the article."

Even with the mass media coverage, many students feel the campus should be notified first.

"My father heard about it on the news and called me to warn me," Ontiveros said.

Lynne Coenen, assistant director at the Women's Resource Center, said female students who came into the center were still shaken several days later.

Coenen also knew about the Cypress incident and how the campus reacted in an informative manner.

"It seemed like the wise thing to do," she said. "It's always advantageous to get information out."

Coenen pointed out that many students are only here on certain days of the week.

"If you're not here on a day that things happen, it could be potentially hard to find out later," she said.

The image of the campus also benefits when things are done properly, Coenen said.

"I think that it reflects a very positive image for the university, the police department and security. It signifies a real awareness for the issues that affect the students and faculty on campus," she said.

University Police are still looking for a resolution to the case.

"While I'd like to report a complete resolution, frankly, I don't know if that's possible," Skipworth said. "It is not a closed case. We continue to readdress it from time to time."

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