Stanford Campus is not Immuned from Crime

<p>Two Stanford Women Attacked On Campus Early Sunday</p>

<p>[Two</a> Stanford Women Attacked On Campus Early Sunday CBS San Francisco](<a href=“http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/02/08/two-stanford-women-attacked-on-campus-early-sunday/]Two”>Two Stanford Women Attacked On Campus Early Sunday - CBS San Francisco)</p>

<p>Oh my, I thought UChicago, USC and UPenn are in a bad area, but Palo Alto?</p>

<p>There is East Palo Alto next to Palo Alto, eventhough it has gotten better but it’s still not great neighborhood. I believe Tiger Woods was mugged when he attended Stanford years ago.</p>

<p>^^Know it well, drive through EPA every day and that part of the University AVE. certainly is seedy, but its about few miles from the U. But UChicago for example, if you walk 200 feet from the South Campus dorm towards the Subway, you are into some dicy places.</p>

<p>Women can, and sadly do, get sexually assaulted in all manner of location…,not just where it’s ‘seedy’, or poor, or where people unlike oneself live.</p>

<p>Those addresses listed on the article link aren’t near University Ave or any place seedy. They are in nice areas in the middle of campus. One girl was attacked in her sorority.</p>

<p>Agree about Chicago.</p>

<p>I have lived in East Palo Alto all my life and a lot of you on here can’t say that. You have this idea that EPA is so bad, when you just drive through there. Why would anyone from EPA drive to Stanford just sexually assault someone? As parent1986 said, it was in a nice area of the campus, not anywhere near EPA. Maybe the people who judge how bad EPA is should help out of the community, instead of belittling it. If you actually lived in EPA, you can see the programs that are helping in the community, but sit in your fancy house on the other side of EPA with your noses stuck up.</p>

<p>What college campus is immune from crime?</p>

<p>Stanford takes sub-2200 SAT students, of course they have crime.</p>

<p>Even smart people? Nooooo…</p>

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<p>sorghum wins the thread.</p>

<p>To me, although the individual victims deserve our concern, the overall story is “meh” to the extreme. This kind of story only feeds those of us already inclined to see the world in a certain way. Don’t get me wrong. I want to know if there’s a serial burglar (or worse) in my city. But I refuse to live in a bunker-mindset. The 24-hour news cycle of disappearing pretty blondes and missing housewives which upset our nice domestic routines perpetuates a lot of nothing IMHO.</p>

<p>I attended an Ivy in the late 80s where the city had a reputation for crime. Being the height of the crack wars was a bad coincidence too. The biggest thing that happened when I was there? It wasn’t some gangsta driveby shooting. Some deranged guy, hiding in the bushes, attacked an acquaintance in the middle of the main square with a hundred other people walking to and fro. He was quickly pounced upon but my friend suffered a cracked skull and other major injuries which caused her to withdraw. She was simply heading back from the main dining hall in the central part of campus.</p>

<p>It confirms that crime can happen anywhere. Frankly the majority of actual crime suffered by students on any college campus is larceny by other students and assault by other students.</p>

<p>In all that, I won’t hesitate 2 seconds to send my girls to my alma mater (nor Stanford either-- lovely weather!) Maybe I’ve had the Kool-Aid but I refuse to live in a bunker mentality.</p>

<p>I would never send my kid to Stanford because of the risk of skin cancer.</p>

<p>Students need to take reasonable precautions wherever they are, including Stanford.
There has been a huge problem with students leaving the exterior dorm doors propped open for convenience, which defeats the security card system. In this case, the interior dorm room door was also unlocked.
It’s also not a great choice to walk alone across campus at 1:45 am.</p>

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Geeks are like vampires, they avoid the sun. :)</p>

<p>Or they are smart enough to wear sunblock…</p>

<p>During my D’s first week at college she called me to say “I’m out in the sun with no sunblock and you can’t do anything about it!” I should have stopped paying tuition right there and then.</p>

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<p>Agreed…</p>

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<p>That is probably the biggest problem at every residential university, since a lot of students came from very low crime areas where leaving doors and windows unlocked and open posed minimal risk of crime. Universities, even in low crime areas, present a high density of easy targets for crime.</p>

<p>I live right near Stanford and follow local news closely. Over the years we have had minor crime waves of various types, but I would not call the local area dangerous by ANY stretch of the imagination. Most of the time it’s about drunks at one bar in downtown Palo Alto OR bikes being stolen (on or off Stanford campus).
These latest incidents have been reported on locally and I don’t believe anyone has been caught, but it sounds like part of the concern is a casual attitude on the part of students - even in Palo Alto I wouldn’t walk about alone very late at night, for example.
Another important idea is to lock your door and be aware of who is going into student residences…a few years back there was a girl who pretended to be a Stanford student by squatting in a dorm (lounge area, etc.)
Another local university, San Jose State, just had a problem with girls being groped/viewed in their rooms - turned out crimes were committed by a fellow student who is now sitting in jail (he did not live in their particular dorm) - this was just a week or two ago! - anyway, in a rather large tower, students were using their keycards to get in and apparently letting others follow - a common practice that needs to be clamped down on. Downtown San Jose is urban and SJSU has an open campus.
I think Stanford, a large private campus which “appears” open may be deceptive in that one thinks nothing can ever happen, but it CAN.
These crime problems surface periodically, theft, whatever, even at Stanford, though Palo Alto is certainly a very upscale place. I wouldn’t attribute these crimes to East Palo Alto (which, while close by and a challenged very small city, IS in another county, after all) - no indications in our local news media that anything happening on the Stanford campus is related whatsoever to East Palo Alto.</p>

<p>The premise of the thread is stupid. Why would anyone have ever assumed that Stanford, or any college campus, was immune to crime? Or is this the usual idealization of elite schools as perfect places?</p>