Violent crime drops in 2005

Capt. Grant Warren of University Police has a favorite analogy for student safety.

“I like to compare it to crossing the street,” he said. “If you’re not careful, you can get hurt. But a little bit of common sense, a little bit of awareness, and this is a great place to come to school.”

There was one violent crime for every 1,011 students at VCU in 2005, according to analysis of the latest FBI crime data. That is a decline from 2004, but property crimes on campus grew from 546 to 580 over that period.

In overall crime, VCU was 103rd of 517 schools reporting valid data, while having the 43rd largest enrollment. When looking at violent crime, which includes murder, forcible rape and aggravated assault, it jumps to 74th.

Within the state of Virginia, the rate of .99 violent crimes per thousand students was comparable to the University of Richmond. It was far lower than Norfolk State University, which had 15 violent crimes and 6,100 students. NSU also led in overall crime, followed by Richmond and Virginia State University in Petersburg.

The biggest factors affecting crime are VCU’s 24-hour teaching hospital and its urban location, Warren said.

“When you’ve got a 24-7 operation, you’re having more human behavior and some of that is crime,” he said of the VCU Health System.

In fact, eight of the nine schools with the highest crime rates had medical centers, led by University of California, San Francisco.

“If you do a like comparison with metropolitan teaching hospitals, we look even better,” Warren said.

Also factoring in is the area around campus. Cities have higher crime rates, and preception feeds into that.

“That’s Richmond’s biggest problem. The perception is a lot worse than the reality,” Warren said.

VCU’s two campuses are composed of more than 170 buildings throughout the city.

Pam Lepley, director of University News Services, said the size adds up.

“The VCU population is about the size of Danville when you add all the students, employees, people going in and out,” she said.

VCU has a good crime mix, Warren said, with theft constituting 96 percent of crime.

For people with ability, desire and opportunity, theft is an easy crime, and 542 larcenies or burglaries were reported in 2005.

“Why is that good? Nobody gets hurt,” Warren said.

“We had 14 aggravated assaults. When you think about a population of 30,000 students and 16,000 employees, that’s still not doing too badly,” he said of the declining violent crimes.

One certain blemish is the murder tally. VCU and the University of Central Florida are the only universities in the country to report a murder in both 2004 and 2005.

On the morning of April 11, 2004, VSU student Jose Anduja was shot in his SUV in a VCU parking lot at Pine and Broad streets. The case shuffled between Richmond and VCU police, with VCU police investigators locating his killer, Keyon Lamont Starling, in May 2005.

“We made an arrest, got a conviction on that. That was good police work and investigation,” Warren said.

A maintenance worker found the body of Iris Anderson, 37, behind the T. Edward Temple building July 16, 2005. The murder of student Taylor Behl was not counted in VCU’s statistics.

There has been a renewed focus on alcohol and drug offenses in the last few years, Warren said. That has increased numbers, but offers a more accurate view of the community.

“When you’re doing good crime prevention – we learned this 20 years ago – your reported crime actually increases, and that’s not necessarily bad,” he said. VCU has reported the data “religiously and honestly” since 1978, more than a decade before it was mandated. Crime has dropped from 1,200 crimes and 11,000 students to 608 crimes and nearly 30,000 students today.

“We’re not going to try to sweep problems under the rug. We’re going to meet them head on and do what it takes to solve them,” Warren said.

Police and university officials are reaching out to students, faculty and staff. Lepley said they added the police department’s number to police cruisers and VCU ID cards after finding out most people did not know to call 828-1234 instead of 911. Specially trained officers are conducting 86 safety sessions in VCU 101 classes this week, Warren said. Lepley said they are working toward a text-messaging system to reach students and employees in case of emergencies.

Virginia colleges and universities by total crime
University/College	Enrolled	Violent	Property	Total
Norfolk State University	6,165	2.43	38.44	41
University of Richmond	4,475	.089	37.32	38
Virginia State University	4,859	1.23	29.22	31
Hampton University	6,154	0.16	26.97	27
College of William and Mary	7,575	0.79	25.87	27
Christopher Newport University	4,681	1.28	22.43	24
Virginia Commonwealth Univ.	28,303	0.99	20.49	22
University of Virginia	23,341	0.51	14.40	15
Longwood College	4,289	1.40	12.82	14
Radford University	9,329	0.647	13.08	14