As the Los Angeles Police Department continues its investigation
into the shooting of a man allegedly trespassing in Kerckhoff Hall,
some students are questioning whether police and university
officials have done enough to inform them of crimes that occur on
campus.
On Sunday night, university police officer Terrence Duren
encountered the suspect in the study lounge on the second floor of
Kerckhoff Hall. During a scuffle, police said the suspect,
52-year-old Willie Davis Frazier, and Duren fought for control of
the officer’s gun and a shot went off, investigators
said.
Duren then fired his weapon after Frazier seized control of the
officer’s baton and attempted to attack him, police said.
Frazier was wounded and taken to a local hospital and as of
Wednesday was reported to be in stable condition.
Nancy Greenstein, UCPD director of police community services,
said university police notified people in various departments on
campus of the incident, including Dean of Students Robert Naples
and the security staff at the Associated Students of UCLA, which
runs Kerckhoff Hall.
When asked about any potential administrative response,
administration officials deferred questions to university
police.
Greenstein said UCPD did not put up warning flyers because the
suspect was already in custody, so there was no immediate danger to
students. She said the department has a limited number of resources
at hand and has to prioritize in dealing with issues.
UCPD also put up a notice of the incident on its Web site Monday
morning and talked to the local media about what happened, she
added.
“The reality is that more students are going to see it
there, in the paper,” she said.
Many students, however, remained unaware of the incident Monday
night. Several believed university and police officials should have
done more to inform them of the shooting.
“I’m on campus from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, and
I never heard anything about this,” Sabiha Ameen, a
first-year biology student, said Monday.
Ameen said there should have been some form of announcement made
or e-mails sent out to students informing them of the incident so
that they could be more careful.
Third-year philosophy student David Khorsandi, who was also
unaware of the incident the following day, said he usually studies
around the area and was surprised that something like this happened
at UCLA.
Though police officials may not want to alarm people by posting
signs regarding the shooting, students should still be immediately
informed of what happened, he said.
Other students said the incident would not stop them from coming
to use the second-floor study hall in the building.
Roscoe Concepcion-Mata, a fourth-year sociology student, said he
was happy there were police officers doing checks at night.
The shooting at Kerckhoff is the first major incident involving
violence on campus since the start of the school year. This past
school year was marred by an alleged rape of a student in De Neve
Plaza and an armed robbery at the Saxon Suites.
Walls of residential buildings were plastered with UCPD crime
alert notices following the Saxon robbery, during which thousands
of dollars of cash and properties were stolen as two residents were
allegedly held at gunpoint.
Many new UCLA students said they were disappointed they were not
told at their orientation of these previous cases.
“I never heard of it at the orientation. “¦ If
it’s serious, they should have told students about it,”
said Nadine Jahchan, a third-year molecular, cell and developmental
biology transfer student.
But some orientation counselors who are UCLA students made an
extra effort to inform students of the incidents.
“Our orientation counselor told us to be careful and to
lock our doors at night because there was a case of a student
getting raped in her room last year,” said Francie Diep, a
first-year undeclared student.
Roxanne Neal, director of the orientation program, said students
at orientation were given a newsletter telling them where they can
go to look for statistics of crimes that occurred on campus.
“We don’t focus on specific incidents, but we try to
educate students to be more aware of their environment and the
safety services available to them,” she said.
Neal added that a university police department representative
participates in orientation sessions to talk about campus safety
and field any questions parents or students might have about
incidents that happened during the past year.
With reports from Charlotte Hsu and Natalie Banach, Bruin Senior
Staff.