<p>Living in Maryland, we are constantly reminded of all the good Johns Hopkins University and hospital do both here and around the world. However, the University is not in a great area of Baltimore, which is a rather dangerous city to begin with.</p>
<p>Sunday night, a 23-year-old Hopkins’s researcher had visited his sister in NY and was walking back to his apartment from the train station and talking to his mom on the phone–she was in Florida. He was robbed, stabbed, and died.</p>
<p>Why post something like this? It is an absolute tragedy for the family and perhaps the whole Hopkins community. However, it is a shocking reminder that you have to be vigilant when you live in a city. This young man was walking in an area that is not considered a bad area. </p>
<p>I agree that people need to be alert, however- I don’t think it is restricted to cities, when I lived in the suburbs, I was sexually assaulted on my way home from junior high, while waiting for the activity bus, I haven’t been assaulted since moving to the city ( although I have had my car broken into twice- different cars).</p>
<p>Before we had DSL I used to go to a coffee shop further into the city core to study that was open late. Seattle isn’t as risky as Baltimore, but it was a neighborhood that was fine during the day,( albeit in “transition”) but at night the crackheads come out. I often would either call my D in Portland ( since I knew she would be up) or pretend to call someone on my cell as I walked back to my car- either to let people know that someone knew where I was, or to make myself feel more comfortable.</p>
<p>It is really tragic, but I don’t know if anything besides another weapon would have made a difference- these things happen.
:(</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins is spread out over several places in Baltimore and in other cities. The undergraduate campus is right next to a very affluent party of the city. Sometimes I wish JHU would move the medical school towards the Homewood campus. Unfortunately, it would cost more than the school could afford. Also, the people living near the medical school like having a world class medical program near them.</p>
<p>This is so unfathomably tragic. Reading that he was on the phone with his mother who heard the robbery even adds to the grief. My kids live in cities and walk home late at night, often talking on cell phones. This is a nightmare and a terrible loss for the family and friends. The alleged perpetrators have a rap sheet but were back on the streets “looking for someone to rob.” Nice.</p>
<p>I really think though that we should tell kids NOT to talk on their cell phones when they are out late at night–though I think they might have one handy with 911 on their speed dial. But when most of us are taking part in a conversation, we’re less observant about our surroundings and more prone to attack. </p>
<p>My heart goes out to this young man’s family. I can’t imagine the mother’s horror as she heard the attack.</p>
<p>I want to point out that the incident did not occur in the Johns Hopkins Hospital area. It was, in fact, in the area of the university’s Homewood Campus. </p>
<p>Though JHU’s Homewood Campus is in a nice part of Baltimore, in fact, it borders on an affluent residential area, the “student ghetto” where most of the students who live off campus have homes spreads into a dangerous area. Though Charles Village has undergone some gentrificaton, as you go towards the city, towards North Avenue, you still see a lot of a dangerous element. Also the campus has a Park adjoining it, and you just cannot predict who or what lurks in a Park at night. </p>
<p>Though confrontational crime can happen anywhere, the odds of it happening can be greater in some areas than others. Yes, there were those terrible murders near Dartmouth, but the crime rate up there does not compare to what it is in many city neighborhoods that are known to be dangerous. A lot of our universities are in lousy neighborhoods, as are many of our hospitals. That is something that families need to consider when looking at a campus. Hopkins is not alone. Just to name a few other schools where the immediate area can be dangerous are UChicago, USC, Yale. Baltimore, however, has been having a surge in crime from what I have heard, though I think their biggest problem is not where this incident occurred.</p>
<p>My friend whose son goes to Regis in NYC (Upper East Side) was mugged on his way from Grand Central to the school. He had his iphone out, and that was taken from him. Happened in the morning in a busy, “safe” area of NYC. Don’t know if the phone was what attracted the perps or if they would have attacked him anyways.</p>
<p>I don’t think the message of that tragic incident is that people need to be vigilant in big cities. I think the message is that anyone can die at any time. </p>
<p>As Emerson said, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”</p>
<p>When it comes to crimes, in my relatively small city that’s a college town, a man walked out of an eatery that’s about a mile from my house. The eatery was in a place where I have never heard of crime occurring. The man was stabbed in the chest by a mentally ill homeless man, and died.</p>
<p>One of my friends lost her young adult son when a tree fell on his car when he was driving to the beach on a sunny day on a well travelled road.</p>
<p>Sorry, Jonri, I wrote without researching. It wasn’t so long ago that Baltimore topped some sort of list in being a dangerous city. </p>
<p>I met my son at the train station in Baltimore several years ago, when he joined me there for a college tour. I had driven there independently, and picked him up very late at night. That area was very creepy and ominous to me. The thing that struck me the most was how deserted it was, unlike the NYC stations. It really made me nervous as I waited for him in my car right outside the station. Several shifty looking people came by, but really very little activity and no sign of any security. </p>
<p>That young man was walking from the train station towards Hopkins. That stretch of Baltimore is not a good area at all. I would not want to walk in daylight.</p>
<p>Agree with what you are saying , NSM, except there are places, situations where you are statistically more at risk. Yes, it can happen anytime, but there are things you can do, avoid to bring down the numbers. You can get killed in a car accident through no fault of your own, on a road that never had any accidents and is considered safe,and with the seatbelt on, but the chances of that scenario happening is less than if you are on a dangerous road, driving recklessly with no seatbelt. </p>
<p>I would have no problem walking from Grand Central Station to Time Square at night because there are so many people around including security and police and other officials. People that make most muggers hesitate about making an attack there. The area where this Baltimore attack occurred is really ripe for this sort of thing. It is not a safe area. You can feel it when you were there. Believe me, I was not talking on my cell phone when I was locked in my car, waiting for my son, and I had the car ready to roll if anyone approached me. I was very much in alert mode because it was a perfect set up for an attack. And I had a big fat ugly bulldog in the car with me that tends to scare the heck out of most people, and the son I was meeting was a big, strapping fellow.</p>
<p>I want to bring up something about life being fair that one of my daughters teachers told about ten years ago- I remember it when I am reminded how short and precious life is.
Which unfortunately is often.</p>
<p>I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that they stabbed him. He gave them his wallet, they could have taken everything he had without any violence. He probably knew that even as he was dying. How awful to realize you were killed for no reason at all.</p>
<p>Why isn’t there security in and around train stations in cities? I’m a city dweller but the few times I’ve found myself in a strange city and felt unsafe was always at the train station, or its surrounding neighborhood. Philadelphia and Providence come to mind. The bus stops are even worse – they are often not even in buildings. I’m talking about Greyhound, not the city transit. It’s ridiculous.</p>