The safety of students attending the University of Manitoba’s Fort Garry campus has been put into questioning since the stabbing of a 23-year old student Tanner Hoplock near the faculty of music building on Oct. 19.
In the aftermath of the stabbing, many have asked the question whether or not the campus is safe.
The debate was originally put into motion in a CBC news article released the following afternoon. In the article U of M student Bassel Alkamazi expressed his concerns that such violent actions were manifested on campus, while a fellow U of M student, Jason Oomah, was convinced that the situation didn’t affect his safety on campus.
Ever since the incident, multiple students have taken sides on the debate. In the means of creating awareness UMSU residence representatives have all agreed that students living in residence are still safe while living on campus grounds.
“It as an isolated incident,” reassures Nick Shamanski the Arthur Mauro Student’s Association (AMSA) representative for UMSU.
“Parking lots are definitely a hot spot. They definitely are increasing security, trying to make a safer campus for everybody, especially for residence kids.”
The U of M is doing more to ensure students safety and tools like the 24-hour watch and the inclusion of the camera in the L lot by University College have been effective, said Shamanski.
In terms of the perspective of students living on Campus both Shamanski and Liz Harries, the director of Residence Students’ Association Council (RSAC) and UMSU rep, make it clear that the student body they represent are not worrying about traversing campus grounds at night.
“I don’t think people are scared. It was a freak thing and people were really shocked and couldn’t really believed it happened,” says Harries. “The only students that can enter the building are those who live there and those who have a specific key to enter,” she continued.
“Every night [in residence] there are RA’s and security patrolling the corridors. [ . . . ] They patrol from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.,” sayid Harries.
The stabbing was not the only incident on campus in the past year that involved students’ safety as on Nov. 4, 2008, a bomb threat made to the University of Manitoba led to the evacuation of the Isbister and Tier Buildings.
“UMSU works will continue to work with the university and Security Services to ensure student safety on all three of our campuses, and we feel there is always room to build on and enhance security,” said UMSU’s president, Sid Rashid.
Rashid went into detail on UMSU’s co-operations with Security Services. The services include the Bison patrol, the augmentation of cameras on campus parking lots, lighting in tunnels and campus security patrol throughout all three U of M campuses.
