Last Monday, an incident on Emma St. left students disappointed with the University Police Department (UPD).
911 dispatchers received several calls before 10:50 p.m. that night for a reported shooting. At the scene, West Haven police officers found one victim, an adult male with gunshot wounds.
Officers provided medical attention to the victim until West Haven Fire Department’s arrival.
The man was later taken to the hospital and his current condition is not known to the public.
The following morning, a statement was sent out to all student emails from the Dean of Students Office addressing the incident, stating that no alert was sent out to students as the incident did not involve any students and was off campus.
“No University of New Haven students were involved. In collaboration with the West Haven PD, it was determined that the situation was isolated to an area off campus and that there was no threat to the University’s campus,” the statement said.
This statement upset several students, with many criticizing it and the university’s inaction for not sending out an alert during the incident.
Following the incident, junior Emma Graybill called her boyfriend out of fear and concern of him running into the shooter.
“The incident on Emma Street was a bit scary,” Graybill said. “At the time my boyfriend was actually driving down Lydia Street at the time so I had him on the phone because I was worried that he would run into the shooter.”
Graybill was one of the students displeased with the university’s response.
“The response that UPD made was a bit lackluster in my opinion,” Graybill said. “When [it] says that the situation was handled by the West Haven police and they didn’t need to do anything it felt like an undermine of the fear and worry that students had at the time.”
While the incident did not take place on campus, many were concerned with its proximity to campus. Emma St. is less than half a mile away from the center of our campus and also less than a 10 minute walk from Forest Hills, an off campus dormitory. The surrounding neighborhoods are also the homes to many university students who choose to commute and rent nearby off-campus houses.
“I understand that it wasn’t on campus but it is very apparent that there are students living off campus as well,” said Graybill. “And commuter safety should be as equally prioritized as on campus student[s] especially to those living so close to campus.”
The university’s reasoning for not sending out alerts is confusing for some, as it would mean the university shouldn’t have sent out a number of alerts sent last academic year. In the statement sent to students, the Dean of Students Office states that alerts will be sent out by university police when they find it necessary.
“As necessary, our University Police Department uses an emergency notification system as well as the LiveSafe App to provide timely public safety updates to our University community,” the statement reads. However, whatever constitutes an alert as necessary appears to be inconsistent.
On Aug. 29, 2024, an alert was sent out to all students warning of a person near campus with a potential firearm. Another alert was sent after West Haven police found the person of interest and found that the suspected firearm was a glass liquor bottle shaped like a gun. In this second alert, it was also clarified that the person of interest never entered campus.
This incident did not occur on campus, did not involve a student and nobody was hurt. These factors warranting an alert caused confusion among students as they are almost all applicable to the incident that happened on Emma St. except in the more recent incident, a victim was hit by gunfire, making it more severe.
Looking into alerts from earlier this year, on Feb. 27, an alert was sent out warning students of traffic at First Ave. and Campbell Ave. This alert being sent out indicates that alerts must also apply to commuting students, which make up a sizable amount of renters near campus.
The university has yet to respond to any criticisms of their response.
