President William R. Brody announced last week in an
open letter to the university community a series of new
initiatives intended to enhance the safety and security of
students on the Homewood campus and in the neighboring
community. The President's
Office and deans of the schools of Arts and Sciences
and Engineering have committed an initial $2 million to
finance the improvements, which include the hiring of
off-duty police and tightening security measures at
residence halls.
In the letter — sent on Jan. 31 to students,
parents, faculty and staff — Brody wrote that the
deaths of two students in the past year have focused the
attention of everyone in the Homewood campus community as
never before on issues of security.
"We know that is just the beginning. Our eventual
investment will be much more than [$2 million]," he said.
"But I pledge to you that we will spend whatever it takes
to secure this community."
Linda Trinh, a senior biomedical engineering major,
was the victim of an apparent homicide on Jan. 23 in her
apartment in a privately owned building across Charles
Street from the Homewood campus. In April 2004, junior
Chris Elser was the victim of a fatal stabbing by an
intruder in an off-campus apartment building occupied by
members of a fraternity.
Some of the measures Brody announced will go into
effect either immediately or within the next 30 days. Some,
he noted, will take a little longer to implement, from 30
to 90 days, or are longer-term initiatives.
In terms of short-term action, the university will
hire off-duty Baltimore City police officers to patrol in
Charles Village at night and overnight. These officers will
be in their police uniforms and will be armed. They will
patrol in university vehicles and, at times, on
foot. Patrols will begin as soon as the officers can be
engaged.
The university is also contracting for additional
foot-patrol guards from Broadway Services Inc. Silver Star
Security, which provides the bulk of the guard force at the
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Johns Hopkins Bayview
and Mount Washington campuses. When the process of adding
forces is complete, the university will have increased its
guards from 14 every 24-hour period to 30.
At the onset, the university will assign officers on
the night and overnight shifts to be a visible security
presence along the Charles Street corridor from Wolman and
McCoy halls and the Eisenhower Library south to Homewood
Apartments. That deployment will be adjusted as experience
dictates and with input from students.
As of today, Feb. 7, the university will replace the
current guard service that staffs the security desk at
Homewood Apartments with BSI personnel, who will check IDs
and obtain positive identification of all guests and
visitors. BSI guards also will be stationed at the Bradford
Apartments. Both buildings are owned by Johns Hopkins.
The university has accelerated the additional
evaluation necessary to begin implementing a system of
video surveillance cameras, to be monitored on a 24/7 basis
from a state-of-the-art Security Department communications
and monitoring station. The plan is expected to be
finalized by Feb. 28, and phased implementation will follow
soon thereafter.
Other immediate measures are as follows:
Johns Hopkins has aggressively
pursued city, electric utility and university improvements
in street lighting in Charles Village. To date, a list of
22 specific recommendations for additional improvements in
lighting in the community has been compiled. JHU is already
implementing those recommendations as they apply to
university buildings and is working with owners of private
property to encourage and assist them in installing the
necessary lights.
Hardware that will improve the
reliability of the on-and-off-campus network of blue light
emergency telephones has been ordered and will be installed
within four weeks.
The university will urgently
address the concerns about shuttle service cited at recent
meetings with students and work with students to identify
the most effective approach.
Parent and student representatives
will be added to Johns Hopkins' Committee on Campus Safety
and Security. The first of frequent, regular meetings of
the expanded committee will begin shortly. The committee,
under the chairmanship of James McGill, senior vice
president for finance and administration, will monitor the
progress in implementing this action plan and recommend
additional steps.
President Brody will appoint a
group of outside experts to conduct a review of campus
security and recommend improvements. This measure is in
addition to ongoing consultation with peer universities to
ensure that JHU is following best safety and security
practices.
As part of the 30- to 90-day action plan, the
university will tighten resident and guest check-in
procedures at Wolman and McCoy halls. Specifically, lobby
areas will be reconfigured so that anyone entering the
buildings must pass through turnstiles and identify
themselves to a security officer. No one, including
residents and other students, will be able to "tailgate,"
that is enter the building with or on the heels of someone
else without presenting proper identification. The
renovations necessary to implement the new system should be
complete within roughly 45 days.
On the campus side of Charles Street, similar resident
and guest check-in procedures will be implemented at the
Alumni Memorial Residences, where additional guards have
been stationed since fall. Given the physical configuration
of these buildings — each of which has multiple
entrances — the university will have to construct
gates across and guard stations at the courtyards of both
AMR I and AMR II. Residents of those buildings, and of
buildings A and B, will be required to pass through those
gates. They and their visitors and guests will be required
to provide positive identification, again with no
tailgating. Architects will immediately be engaged to draw
up plans, and construction is planned to start before the
end of the semester.
The university will devise and implement a new system
to provide students with reliable information about the
security systems and practices of off-campus apartment
buildings, and Hopkins will work actively to encourage
landlords of those buildings to improve security.
In terms of long-term action, President Brody said
that Johns Hopkins is committed to meeting the need of
students for more university-owned housing so that any
undergraduate student who desires to live in a university
building can do so. This summer, ground was broken on
Charles Commons, a university-owned mixed-use complex
located on the north side of East 33rd Street between North
Charles and St. Paul streets. The facility will house more
than 600 students when it opens in fall 2006. President
Brody has also directed that the university speed up the
planning process for additional student housing, including
an expanded freshman quadrangle on the campus side of
Charles Street.
Brody said that one primary goal must be to protect
the stability and enhance the livability of the nearby
neighborhoods where so many students, faculty and staff
reside.
"This action plan will evolve and grow as we pursue it
and as we receive more recommendations from our outside
experts, our standing committee and from you, the students,
parents, faculty and staff on whose behalf we are
undertaking all these efforts," he said. "Nothing is more
important than the safety and security of our students. I
pledge to you today that we will not waiver in our
determination to fully implement this plan. And I pledge
that we will never lose sight of the imperative to provide
the entire Homewood campus community a safe environment for
living, learning and working, and to do so in close
collaboration with the city, the neighborhoods and each of
you."