After Syracuse University was put on lockdown in response to an off-campus shooting Wednesday night, some students are praising the Department of Public Safety for issuing multiple Orange Alerts during the lockdown and, one day after the shooting, still feel safe on campus.

“I think they responded as quickly as they could. It was smart to send out the alerts. I thought they handled it as quickly and as effectively as possible,” said Nikki Bracci, a freshman communication and rhetorical studies major.

At 7:20 p.m, a 15 year-old male named Zavion Escobar was shot and killed on Hope Avenue, which is about two miles away from the SU campus. Another 17 year-old male suffered a non-life threatening injury to the leg. The suspects, which police considered to be armed at the time, fled the scene to Oakwood Cemetery on Comstock Avenue where police searched for the suspects for several hours. During that time, the SU was put on “shelter-in-place” and students were told to stay inside.

The suspects, according to SPD, are still at large.

“I do feel safe, actually. It was really scary, but DPS took immediate action,” said Gabriele Nieves, a junior international relations major. “I felt like they were really prepared.”

Off campus, though, sentiment differs. In addition to Wednesday’s off-campus shooting, there was an armed robbery on Ostrom Avenue last week and few days later the Goldstein Student Center on South Campus was subject to an attempted strong arm robbery.

“If I go outside of the school area, I don’t feel safe,” said Nick Chen, a junior supply chain and entrepreneurship major.

Brooke McCarthy, a junior accounting major, also said there is a major difference between the level of safety on and off campus. She added that although she feels less safe off campus, the DPS response to the shooting was appropriate and kept everyone safe.

As of Thursday night, the results of a poll from The Daily Orange shows that about 15 percent of respondents do not feel safe on campus at all, a view shared by Markia Hughes, a senior in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and La Zyrick Middlebrooks, a junior in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.

“I live on South and after the Goldstein thing I definitely feel that something just isn’t going right with our security,” Hughes said. “I definitely feel less safe overall.”

Both Hughes and Middlebrooks said they wanted to know more information from DPS about the shooting and felt the constant Orange Alerts urging students to say inside lacked clear, concrete information.

“I’m sure DPS knows we don’t feel safe right now, so I hope they take this as an incentive to up their safety protocols,” Hughes said.

In a press conference on Thursday, DPS Chief Bobby Maldonado said the number of DPS patrols have returned to normal levels and maintained that there was no increased security risk on campus.

“(DPS) does a really good job of taking care of the crime here,” said Nathan Conboy, a freshman illustration major. “You can’t really do much about crime that happens elsewhere… but the security they have here is really effective.”

Published on October 15, 2015 at 10:59 pm

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu