Summer crime incident wake-up call for reviewing personal safety plans

It's an area of town thousands of New York City residents and Columbia students walk through everyday, but on the night of August 8th this street became a crime scene.  

"So I was walking south on Broadway towards 110th Street to go over to Amsterdam and walk north on Amsterdam to go back home.  I was on the phone when about half way through 110th a man came from the street and approached me with a gun. He said 'give me your phone' and I said 'no' and he approached me and tried to grab the phone from my hand. I said 'please don't do this, please don't do this' and he noticed I had a purse on my arm. He said 'give me your purse' and I said 'no,no, please don't do this' and I held on to my purse and my phone and I wouldn't let go. I panicked, so he punched me in the face and knocked me down to the ground...I was still on the ground and I watched him drive off and that's when I got up and ran to 110th and Amsterdam, there's a bar there, and ran inside and I told the bartender to call the police. The police showed up two minutes later, evidently there was two other men that were robbed right before I was, they called the police, they had heard me screaming, which is why the police came so quickly.," said the assault victim.

The incident resulted in a campus bulletin being issued via email and came as a surprise to some students.

Reporter: Do you feel pretty safe on campus?

"On the actual campus, yeah, once  I get to Riverside or Monrningside, not so much, especially late at night, especially with the incident during the summer where the girl was assaulted, I don't feel as confident walking over there by myself," said Columbia University student Evelyn Aguilar.

I'd say you probably wouldn't want to wear your headphones at night, just kind of be aware, you can always carry some mace with you," said Columbia University student Matt Kipilman.

Vice President of Pubilc Safety James McShane says a three prong approach is used to keep the campus safe. 

"Personnel, technology and training.  Personnel, we have an enhanced uniform presence throughout the entire community.  We have approximately 70 uniformed security officers that are public safety employees, as well as probably another 100 contract guards that we use for the off-campus patrols.  We are very visible out there, we have people who are on foot, we have sergeants on bicycle, we staff guard booths, we have a number of vehicles that are on patrol, particularly in the evening and the overnight. We have a large presence, we are always out there as a resource, we are available  to people in their times of need," said McShane.

The  campus also employs an extensive network of cameras and offers services to students who might be afraid to venture off campus late at night.

"Well, first I guess the most important resource that we have available is our operations center.  On this campus we have a 24-hour operations center located here in Lowe Libary. We run our escort program out of there and we are a resource, come in any time day or night if you have a problem. There are what we call blue light phones that are situated all over campus as well as a number of off-campus locations.  If someone has a problem or they are feeling threatened they can go to those phones and push the button and we will answer.  We have an escort program that is highly regarded and highly used.  It works two ways, there's the student escort program. We have students that are trained by public safety, we give them public safety radios and they will escort students, faculty, or staff who call us and request an escort anywhere in the immediate vicinity of the Columbia campus. The telephone number for that is 854-SAFE.  We supplement that with a mobile escort that we use for late night service that runs as late as 6 a.m. That number is the same, if you call that number and you request an escort, we usually use that for greater distances than the foot escorts but it is available until 6 o'clock in the morning. We will take you from campus to your residence hall or anywhere, again a little wider area, we go as far north as 135th St. and as far south as 103rd St. with our vehicle escort.  The "Safe Havens" program works by various merchants in the area agree to put our safe haven logo, the red lion logo, in the window of their store, and it serves as a beacon to Columbia students. If they are walking around the neighborhood and for whatever reason they don't feel safe, if they think someone is following them or they have any other kind of problem they can walk into the store that's displaying the safe haven logo and the store merchant will call public safety and we will respond and we will come and get you if need be," McShane said. 

As the fall semester welcomes new students from around the world, a few common sense tips can be useful while navigating New York City.

When you're in New York City walk with your head up not your head down because if you're walking with your head down you're basically saying 'I'm not from New York and I want to be a victim.'  So we tell people to keep their heads up, to look at people, make eye contact, don't stare at people, but look up and keep your whits about you. One of the most common crimes not just in this area but across the country is cellphone snatching. People tend to get lost in their electronic devices more so as the technology improves, but we tell people to not walk down the street with their cellphone in their ear, because there's a chance that someone's going to come right up behind you and snatch it right out of your hand," said McShane.

Unidentified Victim: "I've been at Columbia for 2 years before this incident happened and I definitely got very comfortable living in New York City, I felt very safe, and I still feel that Columbia is a very safe area , however don't be complacent, because you're so comfortable with your surroundings, always be vigilant, this is the city, there's millions of people, just be aware of surroundings.  Don't go to places at night, don't go t the park alone, don't walk down dark streets, make sure you always have a friend."

John Kluge passes away, leaves legacy at Columbia

CTV News would like to pay our respects to John Kluge, who passed away on September 7th. Mr. Kluge, the longtime chairman and president of Metromedia, made a $400 million pledge to the University in 2007, the largest gift ever devoted to student financial aid. Mr. Kluge was one of Columbia’s most generous benefactors, and it was his appreciation of life that made him a special individual.

World Leaders Forum kicks off

On Wednesday, the Eighth Annual World Leader’s Forum got underway at Columbia. Goodluck Jonathan – President of Nigeria – was scheduled to speak on Monday, but his event has been cancelled. Guests who are scheduled to speak this week include the President of the European Commission - José Manuel Barroso – and President Abdullah Gul of Turkey.

MSA Raises Awareness for Pakistan

Every year the Muslim Students Association chooses a cause to raise funds and awareness for during the Fast-a-thon. This year's cause is the flood, which at one point covered over one fifth of Pakistan, and has killed over two thousand people and left twenty-one million homeless.

MSA's Vice President, Samiha Rahman explained, "And so people have been fasting, abstaining from food and drink all day. But the scary thing about the people who are the flood victims is that they've had to do that or by nature of being in a situation in which they have no resources they've just been abstaining from food and drink just because they have nothing else to do. So one of the short term concerns is getting out humanitarian aid as effectively as possible."

Students were eager to participate in this event because it gave them an opportunity to help a situation that they feel is not getting the attention it deserves.

"We thought it was important for Columbia students, just as we mobilized for Haiti earlier in January, that it was really important for us to mobilize for the cause in Pakistan." Rahman told CTV.

Pakistan's ambassador to the UN, Abdullah Hussain Haroon spoke at the event, and echoed many of the student's concerns about the need to raise awareness and support for the people in Pakistan. He urged students to think about how they can contribute not just in this situation, but in any disaster.

The ambassador told the crowd, "If you take even a risk of sending that amount back to people who are in desperate need, you won't really be hurting yourself or your finances. So let's not talk of your visits, let's talk of the enormous humanitarian crisis, let's talk of sharing and helping with others."

Bed Bug Story Tease

Millennium Conference

The Millennium Campus Conference wrapped up today. The event, which was held in Lerner Hall, brought together almost one thousand students and high profile guest speakers from around the world to discuss important world issues like poverty and environmentalism. See more about the Millennium Campus Conference online.