John Alex Nunnery and Hallie Chastain
Editor and Reporter
The Mississippi University for Women campus is the center of life for many students and staff. Hundreds of people go in and out of campus every day with the expectation that they will be kept safe inside the perimeters of campus. This expectation has recently become more uncertain among students as several events have shaken their faith in whether they are being kept safe.
There have been several issues that have made students unsettled lately: the two biggest being the security of the front gate entrance at night and the string of phone thefts at the Fant Memorial Library on campus.
Several students have reported that the night guard regularly allows people to pass through without checking their IDs or even putting the stop sign up. The sign outside the entrance remains in the slow-down position, allowing anyone to easily drive through and get on campus. This has made many uncertain about who could come on campus.
“For the most part I feel safe, but there are sometimes where I don’t know,” said Larry Fain, a sophomore Accounting major at The W who works at the library. “I am kind of annoyed that they stopped checking IDs because even when the stop sign is up, they stopped checking IDs. Especially with the stuff that happened recently with the dude getting on campus and other little things. I know even some of my friends have brought up that they don’t like walking alone at night especially because the parking is so spaced out and especially since they don’t check IDs anyone can get in.”
As an example, one of the more frightening things that happened recently that upset students was an alert that was sent out to the residents of The W that informed them of a possible violent offender associated with people on campus. On Jan. 24, 2022, an alert was sent out about Braylin Christopher Edinburgh, who was wanted for three counts of aggravated assault in connection with a local shooting that wounded three people. He eventually turned himself in, but a follow up alert was never sent out to the general campus community. A Campus Safety Bulletin was distributed through university email confirming that Edinburgh had been spotted on campus and a search had been done at Jones Hall, but that the authorities no longer believed him to be on campus. That bulletin was simply an email with a link, and it did not contain any information to let campus know the content of the message.
Later on, a current student at The W, Jasmine Spires, was also arrested in connection to the case on three charges of accessory after the fact of aggravated assault. This has led to much speculation as to whether the two had been on campus at one point together, but this has not been confirmed. Incidents like this have made the community more nervous about who can get on and off-campus.
The campus police said they are looking into the gate situation to try and determine if everyone is doing their jobs correctly.
“Our procedure is that during normal hours when the gates are locked — that means after 7 p.m. on the weekdays and on the weekends — the stop signs can be out and individuals entering campus will be subject to an ID check,” said Randy Vibrock, the chief of police at The W. “I can tell you as well that our dispatchers work the gate and they do multi-task as well, so there is a possibility that when someone comes through the dispatcher may just be busy with something else at the time, but if someone is truly being neglectful and just kind of not doing this at all, I would be glad to look into it.”
But student concerns don’t begin and end with after-hours access to the campus. The library is usually a safe place for students but now there are some questions about the security of the building. A string of phone robberies has left many feeling that they are unprotected even in corridors inside of the campus. One victim whose phone was stolen felt that more could have been done.
“Whenever my phone got stolen, I was upstairs studying, and this kid came up to me to ask to borrow my phone to call his mom, and then he asked if he could sort of go over here to make his phone call and I said ‘Yeah, sure, that’s fine.’ I wasn’t trying to get up in his business or anything, and eventually I got up to go throw something away and when I came back, (he was) nowhere to be found,” said Ryan Howell, a senior majoring in Business Administration and Marketing. “I went to the front desk and asked them if they had seen anybody run out and they had, so they called the police.”
Howell said that he was told a police officer would contact him to follow up about the incident, but he was never contacted.
“I ended up calling the police department a week later and sort of asked them if maybe I had missed them, and the guy I talked to told me they weren’t able to get anything clear and concise off the camera footage, and the guy who had processed my case at the time was off for the week, so I should expect to hear something from him when he got back,” Howell said, adding that he never heard from an officer about the incident.
After some of the initial thefts, the library staff did notice a few changes to the security at the library, even though they did not witness the crimes themselves.
“I mainly sit at the front desk, so I only see like students who actually need to do something,” said Fain. “I do know that police have been coming by every night to check the library. I don’t know how often, but I’m pretty sure it is pretty often.”
An incident that was not well publicized last fall involved a Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science student. A Community Safety Bulletin from the campus police department on Nov. 17, 2021, detailed a female MSMS student who reported being fondled at gunpoint on the field across from the MSMS performing arts center.
The bulletin stated that “A white male in a small black four-door car parked his vehicle on 15th Street, yelled to the student to approach the fence and threatened her with a handgun. When she came to the fence, the suspect reached through the fence, put his hand under her clothing and fondled her breasts. The student stated the suspect then pushed the barrel of the gun into her chest and stated, ‘I dare you to say anything about this.’” The bulletin stated that the campus police were working with the Columbus Police Department to investigate the incident. Campus police were ensured by the Columbus Police Department that no similar inceidents had been reported in the community.
Campus police said they have been trying to address and remedy safety issues as they have been brought to light. Vibrock said their biggest concern is keeping students safe and making them feel at ease while attending The W. He said extra surveillance cameras will help to monitor campus activity.
“Currently we have a project of about 25 exterior cameras that are being installed. We currently have 16 of those that are up and operational and nine additional ones going up. I was a part of this process as we determined locations — mostly entry points and exit points of campus — so we can monitor who may be coming in and who’s leaving campus,” said Vibrock.
The campus police offer several services to students who may be nervous walking alone, and the Night Owls program on campus offers free rides for people on campus at night. Vibrock said the campus police want to be notified if students see or hear anything suspicious. Their number is (662) 241-7777.