Are TU Alerts Just A Way Of Getting Worried Parents To Shut Up?

     After coming across numerous articles written by the Temple News, a student-run news source, I'm beginning to regret my decision to google "temple university crime." With titles like "Public cautioned after attempted abduction of Temple student," "Gun violence takes student's life during botched robbery," and "Two Philadelphia Police officers shot, one fatally, blocks from campus," all written within 2 years from today at most, of course it's a little bit unsettling. But what really bothers me the most is Temple's 'TU Alert' System. Temple police are supposed to send out alert texts to cellphones and/or emails about shootings, break ins, and all that pleasant stuff that's going on within or near our campus in lovely North Philadelphia. Seems like a good system, right? Wrong. At least in my opinion it's not the best it could be.
     I've been here for over two months and from what I can recall I've only received five alert emails. I'm not living under a rock, and I know that within the 2+ months I've been here, there has definitely been more than five incidents that students here should at least be aware of. 
     One of the first articles that popped up when I googled "temple university shooting" was one that occurred on November 2nd. Apparently a man was shot in the chest multiple times right off the edge of Temple's main campus. Glad I'm finding this out 8 days later. Ray Betzner, assistant vice president of university communications, said that a TU Alert was not deemed necessary for this situation because "no students were involved in any way and students were not near the vicinity." I find this particularly entertaining because I received an alert email before about a shooting which happened inside a residence, off-campus, which involved no Temple students.
     As if that's not sketchy enough, on Halloween, while tons of Temple students, including myself, were all spread out at different parties, or uh, "friendly get-togethers," (Hi Mom) I got a text from Temple police about a shooting that took place in a neighborhood I was in at one of those friendly Halloween get-togethers. I'm glad it didn't happen where I was, and it's a great thing that they notified everybody about what happened that night, while so many students were still out, wandering around - you know, except for the fact that they didn't send out the notification until sometime around 5 in the morning, three hours after the shooting happened. So meanwhile, 15 minutes after this poor Temple student was shot, I was standing outside an apartment completely clueless. Thank you, Temple police. 
     My discontent for Temple's student advisory system is nothing new, but something in particular sparked this whole rant. When I was walking back from dinner tonight, I saw two police cars and one of those scary white police vans that I find super intimidating gunning it to get to the side of my dorm building, where they proceeded to sit there with their lights flashing. I had to include a picture of one of the vans, whenever I see one accompanied by several other normal cop cars I get so intimidated. Don't they just seem scary? Eek. But anyways, I thought it was a little weird nobody at least told our building the reason for this. For the record, I have nothing against Temple police, and although I've heard Philadelphia police can be assholes sometimes, I admire them for putting themselves in dangerous situations on a daily basis in such a crime-filled city. I know I could never do a job like that. And it's not that I'm afraid to go places and walk around outside. The whole point of this post was to rant about how Temple's alert system appears to be more of a mechanism to get parents to stop worrying about their kid's safety rather than an actually helpful tool. I like to let myself get carried away with rants sometimes.


Quote from Ray Betzner taken from http://temple-news.com/2010/11/05/nov-2-shooting-near-main-campus-results-in-death/.