“Our number one priority is getting to the side streets,” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said in a press release Sunday. “Residents have been very patient as we work to recover from the fifth largest snow storm to ever hit the City of Boston.”

Winter Storm Nemo hit the Northeast Friday and continued until Saturday, bringing about 24.9 inches of snow to the Boston area.

Boston schools are closed Monday and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will resume normal services Monday.

“We are focused on getting service back to our customers as quickly as is safely possible,” said Kelly Smith, deputy press secretary for the MBTA, in an email.

“We have crews working around the clock to make necessary repairs and tend to clearing, but we’ll only reopen service when it is absolutely safe to do so. Our main goal is restoring service for Monday morning’s commute.”

MBTA services closed Friday at about 3:30 p.m. and remained closed until the MBTA announced Sunday there would be limited subway and key bus routes around 2:00 p.m. Sunday, according to the MBTA website.

The City of Boston had no power outages, according to the National Grid outage map Sunday. Still, on Sunday, more than 300,000 homes and businesses reported having no power.

Michael Verseckes, a Massachusetts Department of Transportation spokesman, said everyone was in full force trying to clear the roads.

“We are still clearing out some of the major roadways,” he said. “The post-storm shoveling is still ongoing and it will take a little time. We still have crews out there.”

Verseckes said in Massachusetts, they called in 3,500 plows and trucks to clear the snow off roadways and 378 of them were in Boston.

Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick issued a road ban Friday asking that all vehicles be off the roads by 4:00 p.m. The ban was lifted Sunday at about 4:00 p.m.

Steve MacDonald, Boston Fire Department spokesman, said there were two fires and one death caused by the storm.

An electrical fire broke out in West End Friday night, leaving more than 460 condominiums without power and heat during the height of the storm. Saturday morning in Roxbury, an unattended candle caused $200,000 in damage to a home, MacDonald said.

A 12 year-old boy died Saturday due to carbon monoxide poisoning in a vehicle when the exhaust system failed to vent out of a car. The child went into cardiac arrest and neighbors revived him with CPR before Boston Emergency Medical Services took him. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital, MacDonald said.

Menino, in a press release Saturday, said public safety is the city’s first priority and people should use caution when cleaning up after the storm.

“The news of this tragic accident is a sad reminder that the danger of this storm is not over,” Menino said in the release. “Please take care and use caution when cleaning up and getting back out on the streets. Our hearts go out to that family and their friends who are learning of this tremendously sad accident.”

MacDonald said there is still a lot of work to be done before Boston is back in full working order.

“There are still a lot of calls we receive for wires down or tree limbs down,” he said. “We are keeping 80 or so firefighters on to deal with the aftermath. We are doing what we can to keep people safe.”

But I question this first-response intuition that has been propagated by the mass media. To begin, I want to point out that guns on campus already de facto exist: A person with Concealed Handgun License (CHL) is allowed to carry his or her guns on 21st Street, Dean Keaton, and for that matter, all other public streets, sidewalks and outdoor areas. We attend an open campus where anyone may walk in and out. In this regard, those with CHL are already allowed to have guns on certain parts of campus. Guns are not allowed, however, on University premises, such as buildings and educational facilities.

The equation of guns with violence has been so pervasive in our culture that the possibility of guns curtailing violence is simply lost or rejected. After all, it is harder to prove if guns have prevented crimes than if guns were used to perpetrate crimes. Here are some thoughts and statistics on concealed carry on campus:

1.  According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education’s statistics on campus safety, there were about 1,000 criminal offenses in 2011 across four-year public universities in Texas. Those offenses include: rape, burglary, aggravated assault, robbery and vehicle theft, among others. The question is, should individuals be in control of means for self-defense within reasonable limits against significant campus crimes? I know very little about mental issues, but it occurs to me that a person who is mentally unstable would find means to carry out heinous acts regardless of regulations, if his or her fragile psyche compels such action. Therefore, regulating against the lawful bearing of arms is simply a perverse exclusion of law-abiding citizens from self-defense. Whether you personally agree with the choice of means for self-defense is secondary to the person’s right to choose, especially considering the means in question conform with existing laws regulating concealed carry — namely, through a permitting process.

2. To obtain a CHL in Texas, a person has to complete 10 hours of training on gun laws, proficiency, storage and nonviolent dispute resolutions taught by a Texas Department of Public Safety-certified CHL trainer, on top of strict eligibility requirements that cut out those with criminal backgrounds and psychiatric disorders. The process ensures that only law-abiding citizens are allowed to qualify for concealed carry licenses. TDPS reports that out of all the criminal convictions in Texas in 2011, only 120 out of 63,679, or about 0.2 percent of total criminal convictions, were of CHL holders. This strongly suggests that CHL holders are largely law-abiding citizens who simply want to have a means for self-defense.

3. Existing evidence does not point to a potential influx of guns on campus. Young people ages 18-29 constitute only about one out of every nine CHL applicants in Texas. The dominant college-age group (18-24) constitutes less than 5 percent — about 7,000 in raw numbers — of the total applicant pool in the state of Texas. Thus the notion that somehow universities will be flooded with guns as result of allowing law-abiding faculty and students with a CHL to exercise their right to self-defense is mere illusion and, frankly, demagoguery.

Taking these factors into account, it seems far-fetched to alarm against the sort of “armed matriculation” proposed by another columnist last week.

It has not been disclosed as to where the shooting started or why it did, but authorities said they suspect it to have taken place in the library or cafeteria of the campus that houses nearly 12,000 students.

One suspect was taken into custody following the act while Houston police were in pursuit of another, who is now in custody, authorities said.

Some reports say one alleged gunman shot himself and was subsequently arrested.

Victims were immediately transported to Ben Taub General Hospital, according to a spokeswoman for the Harris Health System.

Of the three individuals shot, one has been listed in critical condition. An additional person was reported to have suffered a heart attack in response to the shooting.

Students of the college reported the incident occurred in response to an altercation between two students, KHOU said.

UH Department of Public Safety sent students an email early this afternoon, alerting them of the severity of the case. The campus is under high security watch until given further instruction.

Hundreds of law enforcement personnel descended on Lone Star College-North Harris following reports of a shooting on campus just after 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

The shooting comes amid a recent upheaval of gun control debates nationally and in the Texas Legislature.

Two suspects were led from the campus in handcuffs and four people were sent to area hospitals. The first suspect was detained within minutes of law-enforcement arrival. A couple of hours later, the second was detained after a search through surrounding woods by the police.

According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, one suspect had a student ID and both were wounded and hospitalized. A post on the Lone Star College website announced the campus was closed for the rest of the day and would reopen for classes Wednesday.

Richard Carpenter, chancellor for Lone Star College said the campus is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and this is the first time an incident of this nature has happened. In fact, there had been recent drills on how to respond in the event something like this happened.

The area was locked down until about 2 p.m. when Lone Star College officials gave the “all clear” via the college’s official Twitter account.

As weeks pass, the country’s mood has turned from mourning to alert. Advocates of gun control view the shooting as another reason why legalization of guns is dangerous and why the Second Amendment needs to be eradicated and, honestly, I can understand that. We have massacres that involve deadly weapons; naturally, the solution would be to ban such weapons.

But there’s more to the story than that. Perhaps the solution is not to ban guns, but to give more leniency to carrying the weapons. The fact of the matter is that guns, being able to deal death, work as protection as well because everyone fears of being on that receiving end.

The worst shootings in our nation’s history have been in gun-free zones. These are designated areas in which registered concealed weapons are not allowed. Shooters, however (as nice and honorable as they might seem), are not likely to obey laws and regulations as they prepare to take lives. While gun-free zones seem like they would provide safety, they only disarm American citizens — the ones not planning on murder.

On Dec. 17, a theater shooting occurred in San Antonio. But it was not widely circulated by the mainstream media, and it’s rather clear why. In this instance the shooter was stopped before many could be injured. The theatre (in a non-gun-free zone) happened to be in the company of an off-duty cop (carrying a concealed weapon) who shot the shooter before more harm could befall movie goers.

Another recent news story not widely circulated involved a mother of two shooting a home invader in order to protect her family. When the man attempted to break into their home, the woman hid in a crawl space with her children and shot the intruder once he found their hiding place.

Had these citizens not been in the possession of guns, their lives may have turned out very differently. More would have been injured or killed in the San Antonio shooting, and a family could have been destroyed.

So while guns can kill, the proof is right there in front of us that their ability to kill is also what keeps many Americans safe and allows them to feel secure. Taking guns away from all American citizens will not keep guns out of everyone’s hands. Criminals and murderers who plan shootings and the like will not read the paper “Guns now banned” and think, “Oh my! Well I guess I’m out of luck then.” They will always find a way to obtain such weapons — but with guns banned, they now are released against an unarmed and defenseless populace.

I know, I know, we’re not defenseless! We have police! The San Luis Obispo Police Department has a goal of a four-minute response time — and they meet that 95 percent of the time, according to their own measures. That’s a speedy arrival, I will surely give them that, but four minutes when faced with imminent danger is awfully long.

The guns don’t even have to be fired; announcing that you carry one to an intruder or mugger is enough to soon see them dashing out your window or fleeing to the nearest crowded area. Their own tactics are turned against them — and man, how they hate it when the tables are turned and they’re the ones watching their lives flash before their eyes.

Gun-free zones and even complete eradication of the Second Amendment will not result in a safer America but a vulnerable and less free one. There’s a reason the Aurora Batman shooter drove past countless theaters to get to the one in a gun-free zone: so he alone carried a gun and had the potential to kill.

That’s the future of America if we give up our right to bear arms — a fundamental right. With our ability to freely pursuit happiness and justice, we surely too have the freedom to feel safe in our own homes.

And so here’s to hoping there won’t soon be a South Park episode featuring our favorite rednecks shouting “They took our guns!”

President Barack Obama released his plan titled, “Now is the Time,” to reduce gun violence and signed 23 executive actions toward the same goal  in a speech on Wednesday.

The plan focuses on four major points. These include; closing background check loopholes for purchasing guns, banning military style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, making schools safer and increasing access to mental health services.

“We can’t put this off any longer,” Obama said as he began to outline the plan, which was created through recommendations by Vice President Joe Biden and Obama’s Cabinet.

The proposed actions will now make there way to Congress.

Iowa State U. professor Steffen Schmidt believes that Obama will choose to have the plan first introduced in the democratically controlled Senate where he will “have a friendlier audience.”

Schmidt said that it “looks a little iffy” on whether or not the proposed plan will make it all the way through Congress.

“The Republicans in the House are not looking to enthusiastic about all of the proposed gun laws,” Schmidt explained.

President Bill Clinton previously signed into law the Federal Assault Weapons ban in 1994, which banned the civillian use of certain semi-automatic firearms.

The ban was allowed to expire in 2004.

“We can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible law-breaking few from inflicting harm on a massive scale,” Obama said in his speech.

Obama finished the speech by signing his 23 executive actions, which have the full force of law.

“Those [executive actions] are perfectly legal and constitutional,” Schmidt said, but explained that a person can choose to sue the federal government if they do not agree with the actions.

The National Rifle Association responded to the proposed plan by saying that they “look forward to working with Congress on a bi-partisan basis to find real solutions to protecting America’s most valuable asset – our children.”

The NRA also stated that, “attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation. Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.”

As people struggle to react, the media must also find the proper way to report such a delicate story. Regardless of the underlying ethics of giving the media such immense power, the tone of media coverage heavily dictates national opinion. While most coverage of the tragedy itself is respectful and informative, there is a small portion of news stories that serves to fuel and perpetuate a twisted interest in the killer himself. Where is he from? Who is he? What is his family like? Articles that aim to answer questions like this give the killer exactly what he wants — fame — and undermines the evil of the incident.

Many pro-gun supporters such as conservative strategist Grover Norquist strongly condemned calls for gun control. “We have got to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes,” Norquist said. This backlash under the guise of being respectful and tasteful actually masks a fear of confronting the nation’s most pressing issues. Oddly, this expectation of tact seems to be absent when it comes to sensationalist stories about Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza. This conventional sensitivity sadly prevents people from fully addressing the politics at the heart of tragedies involving mental illness and, especially, gun control, but it also prevents the media from indulging in the nation’s perverse fascination with the killer.

After the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., film critic Roger Ebert wrote an editorial for The New York Times criticizing the media for its shameless obsession with the shooter, James Holmes. “I don’t know if James Holmes cared deeply about Batman. I suspect he cared deeply about seeing himself on the news,” Ebert wrote. He argued that the media gives shooters the exact notoriety and fame that they crave, as most killers become household names. Ebert urged the public to address the root problems behind the issue. Instead of focusing on the killer’s identity, his past, family, motives and so on, the victims and the media should focus on the underlying causes, such as the lack of proper mental health care and the accessibility of assault weapons.

We can talk about Holmes or Lanza as minor celebrities, men so horrible that a careful investigation into their histories and psyches must be launched, but it only elevates them to the notoriety they desire. This media obsession with the killer plays right into the hands of other potential shooters. Not only is this disrespectful to the victims of school shootings, whose names are often forgotten long before that of the shooter, but it also is counterproductive. Realistically, the only way to enact permanent change is to foster political dialogues regardless of the taboo of “politicizing” a tragedy.

If the media focused on the victims and the controversies regarding mental health and gun control as opposed to emphasizing the killer and his backstory, not only would more intelligent dialogue result, but a clear message would also be sent to other shooters that their plan would not get them the national infamy they may desire. When major media outlets accidentally pander to the murderer by fact-mongering for any sort of particularly salacious piece of information about his tumultuous family life, recent job loss or divorce, they throw the real issues to the wayside. The proper way to honor the victims would be to actually have the gumption to address these inflammatory political conflicts that are inseparable from cause of these national tragedies. Trying to enact permanent change that could prevent these shootings is not disrespectful — in fact, it is more disrespectful to ignore these issues.

Last November, right before the break, we published an editorial offering our two cents on weapons. In reflection — on the shootings in the Clackamas Town Center in Happy Valley, in Newtown, Conn., at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and in New York where firefighters were lured to a burning house and car only to be shot upon — we still agree with what we said.

Guns have a place and time, people have the right to own them, but crazy people will be crazy. The guns aren’t the problem; the people behind them are. So naturally, we should outlaw people — or something realistic.

It’s true, President Obama is prepared to use executive orders to apply restrictions on weapons in this country — if he has to. It’s also true the plans being discussed limit which guns are accessible to civilians, decreasing the amount a magazine holds, banning Internet sales of ammunition and mandating federal background checks. Though, like everything left up to our elected officials, nothing has been decided on a countrywide level.

Although Congress is taking their sweet-potato time, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a plea to the Congress on Wednesday to step it up. He’s also pushing for New York to be the first state to reform laws on gun control.

But why is it so difficult for our nation to come together and work on this very serious issue?

On Tuesday, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart made the point that we can’t come together on this issue because gun advocates are afraid the government will extend their sticky fingers into our homes and take away our guns. Like Gov. Cuomo said, this is not about the government taking away our guns.

We own guns. We have gone shooting and hunting. We like our guns, and we don’t want anyone to take them away. These facts, however, do not inhibit our ability to see what’s in front of us. Americans need to understand there are unstable people willing to march into a shopping mall, lure firefighters to a fire or even barge into an elementary school with deadly intent.

We don’t believe taking all guns away will help — that would only lead to drawn out regulations on bows, knives or hammers. A free-for-all, however, isn’t the answer either.

We don’t have a plan of action, or a solution better than what our Congress has put out there. We do agree civilians don’t need a semi-automatic AR-15. We do agree more intensive background checks shouldn’t be fought. We do agree limiting a magazine to fewer than 10 bullets is a fair idea.

No, none of this will stop gun violence, because there will always be crazies. Just like prohibiting alcohol wouldn’t stop drunk driving. However, little things like a drinking age and a campaign to promote alcohol awareness has helped reduce drunk driving fatalities by 52 percent since 1982, according to The Century Council.

Just saying.

In the statement issued Thursday, the association, comprised of 62 universities including U. Florida, is pushing for the federal government to reform gun laws.

While UF is in the association, Director of Public Affairs Janine Sikes said it is not a UF-related initiative and was unaware if UF has taken any stance.

Jodine Castin, a 22-year-old health education and behavior senior, said she was glad the association was calling for action.

“Part of my fear was that it would be forgotten,” she said. “There needs to be at least one law made.”

Stating that schools have become “centers for national mourning,” the statement issued by the executive committee has asked that action occur on three domains: gun control, care of the mentally ill and the culture of the contemporary media.

The Association of American Universities has joined more than 300 college presidents who have signed College Presidents for Gun Safety, an open letter demanding Congress pass stricter gun control laws.

UF has not signed the list, which is made up of mostly private colleges.

Criminology and sociology professor Ronald Akers said he thought the association’s requests were reasonable and supported the call.

“The passage and outcome of any policy changes will be more symbolic than actually effective in dealing with or preventing events such as at Sandy Hook elementary,” Akers wrote in an email.

Stating that mental illness has played a role in mass violence in America, the association has requested more thorough examinations of the treatment of the mentally ill in the search for ways to extinguish mass violence.

The Association of American Universities has also called for a ban of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.

Yet, Akers said higher levels of gun violence are often found in stronger gun control jurisdictions.

“Whatever failures of gun control that can be identified in such instances predict too much,” Akers wrote. “The same failures are found all over the place without the same outcomes.”

Linda Nhon’s approval of tighter gun control by the federal government was heightened after she left a Largo, Fla., music venue, and two gunshots were fired when a fight broke out.

“There were kids there,” said the 21-year-old UF junior. “It makes me feel unsafe to go to public places, especially around my own peers.”

Sydney Madrigal, a 19-year-old UF freshman, is also in support of more regulations when it comes to buying a weapon.

While the association is focused on gun control and mental illness, the statement also points blame to the media, which they said is fueling crime with their “addiction to violence.”

“The exposure to media portrayals of violence in American society is very widespread, so there should be very large, even massive numbers of such incidents,” Akers said. “Yet there are relatively few, so few that when they occur they attract enormous attention.”

Akers said the policy changes that stem from traumatic events can reach a level of moral panic that produces strong public fear.

“Once the policy changes are made we tend to think we have fixed the problem, but the evidence and the probability that any of the recommended actions will have real, meaningful and consequential outcomes is pretty low,” he said.

University Police responded to a call from University Village, an off-campus residential area for students, regarding a disturbance that involved Williams, according to the press release.

After making contact with Williams in the hallway of the dorm, Williams allegedly became aggressive, according to the press release. Police responded to the resistance and, fearing for their safety, fired shots and striking Williams.

Williams was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the press release.

The San Bernardino Police Department is handling the investigation.

San Bernardino Sergeant Shauna Gates declined to comment on the incident.

Erik Vasys, San Antonio FBI spokesperson and agent, said the FBI takes all threats seriously and the investigation into this incident is ongoing. He would not elaborate on the details of the investigation.

The University ordered a campus-wide building evacuation at 9:50 a.m. Friday in response to a bomb threat that was called in 75 minutes earlier at 8:35 a.m. Many students said they were concerned the University waited too long to evacuate the buildings. The caller claimed the bombs “all over” campus would start detonating 90 minutes after his phone call, making the detonation time 10:05 a.m.

In this instance, the criminal consequence under state law for making a terrorist threat is a third degree felony, with a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, as well as possible civil liabilities. If a terrorist threat meets certain specifications, such as disrupting public transportation, putting the public in fear and/or influencing government activities, then the crime is considered a third degree felony.

The University delayed registration-related deadlines originally set for Friday, including undergraduate add-drop and tuition payment, until 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17. As of Sunday night, the University had not sent a campus-wide email informing students of the extension.

At a press conference at noon Friday, UT President William Powers Jr. said he was extremely confident the University was safe. Powers said he could not elaborate on the details of the call and defended UT’s response to the incident.

Meanwhile, North Dakota State U. also received a bomb threat. Vasys said the FBI is looking at the possibility of a connection between the two hoax calls. At Friday’s noon press conference, Powers said he could not say whether the two instances were related, but he did say the investigation team had information that they might be.

UTPD chief Robert Dahlstrom said bomb threats at UT usually happen multiple times each semester.

“It doesn’t happen that often,” Dahlstrom said. “It’s very rare. I would say several a semester, and that’s just on average.”

Dahlstrom said the text message was sent at 9:50 a.m. Had the threat been real, the bombs would have gone off around 10:05 a.m., giving students less than 20 minutes to evacuate UT buildings and distance themselves away from campus.

“I think 9:50 a.m. was way too late to decide they were going to evacuate,” said Daniel Cortte, freshman architecture major. “It seemed to me like they were more concerned with finding out if it was real.”

Cortte said he saw students in buildings at 10:05 a.m.

Powers said the first action the University takes when a threat is made against campus is to determine if the threat is credible. He said if the threat had been of immediate danger, the University would have evacuated immediately.

Students can subscribe to the University’s text message alerts on UTPD’s website. But some students who said they are subscribed to the alerts said they did not get the messages.

Theater junior Chase Gladden said he did not receive the original evacuation alert text message because his classroom lacked reception. Another student who ran in late told the class about the text message.

“Once we all got outside of the building, we started receiving text message alerts, but I only received the follow-ups,” Gladden said.

The evacuation also left students off campus, living in the Riverside, Far West and East Campus areas with no way to get home for almost three hours.

Capital Metro UT shuttles could not enter campus after the evacuation was announced. Capital Metro spokesperson Erica Masioge said shuttles were back on their regular routes at 12:30 p.m. UT shuttles and regular routes that run through the University stopped running or were rerouted after UTPD informed Capital Metro about the evacuation at 10 a.m.

“We couldn’t get any bus to campus until we got the clear from the University,” she said.

Last week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan reinstated a $27,500 fine against Virginia Tech for failing to provide a timely warning to the campus community during the 2007 shooting rampage.

Duncan’s reinstatement reversed a ruling by the Education Department’s chief administrative judge, who concluded Virginia Tech did not violate the law and thus overruled a 2010 finding by an office within the department.

Under the Clery Act, which was enacted in 1990, universities that participate in federal financial aid programs are required to keep and disclose information about crime on or near campus and issue warnings during potential threats.

The shooting in 2007 brought the Virginia Tech administration under investigation and the bureaucracy of university campus security under scrutiny.

On April 16, 2007, campus police received a 911 call at 7:15 a.m. about gunshots in a dormitory. Officers arrived at the scene 15 minutes later, where they found one student dead and another critically injured.

Top administrators sent a campuswide email at 9:26 a.m. warning students and employees about a “shooting incident.” The email read, “The university community is urged to be cautious and asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious.”
Minutes after the email was sent, the same man in the dormitory opened fire again, this time in an academic building, where he killed 30 more students and professors, and himself.

Duncan’s Friday decision is the latest to come in a years-long investigation. Federal officials first determined the university had violated the Clery Act in December 2010, saying the warning at 9:26 a.m. came too late and was too vague.

The university appealed that finding, and an administrative judge for the department overturned it, saying that federal guidelines on timely warnings are unclear. An advocacy group representing survivors and victims of the shooting pushed for another appeal, and the decision came up to the secretary, who acknowledged that federal law does not define what a “timely warning is,” but also said the email that went out two hours after the first shooting was too late.

He also cited as evidence that administrators perceived an ongoing threat by referring to the lockdowns of campus facilities (one at 8 a.m. and one shortly after 9 a.m.), and the cancellation of trash pickups. That perception, his decision argued, suggested the administration’s warning could have been more urgent.

Virginia Tech officials immediately suggested that the university would appeal Duncan’s decision. Such an appeal would mark the first time a Clery Act investigation had gone out of the Department of Education and into federal court.

But it’s time to put the case to rest.

Yet another appeal drags the investigation out further, prolonging a question that has already been answered on three separate occasions. Rather than once again re-examine the Virginia Tech administration’s missteps (or argue that missteps weren’t made at all), move on.

Rather than get tangled up in bureaucracy, Virginia Tech and other college administrations can treat Duncan’s decision for what it is: a bar by which to measure campus safety and build a safer future for university communities.

In the wake of tragedy, it is important to reflect on past events in order to figure out how to move forward. But eventually, and certainly five years down the line, you have to actually move forward.

During the conference, Jindal stressed that every storm is different, and tropical storm Isaac should not be compared to Gustav or Ike.

Isaac has proved less predictable than Gustav, he said, and he reminded Louisianians that everyone within its possible cone of influence should be making preparations.

State offices will be closed today and tomorrow. Jindal said he will not attend the Republican National Conference in Tampa, Fla.

“The storm is non-partisan,” he said. “After we have gotten back on our feet, there will be time for party politics.”

Jindal said East Baton Rouge Parish and surrounding areas stand a 70 percent chance of feeling tropical storm-force winds.

The chance of Baton Rouge feeling hurricane force winds is 10 to 18 percent, he said.

Jindal urged citizens to take Isaac seriously. He said the storm is moving slowly, which could result in the accumulation of damage over 20-24 hours of tropical storm-force winds and rain.

Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Governor Rick Perry of Texas have both offered assistance to the state as it prepares for Isaac.

Mississippi and Louisiana both have made preparations to put contra-flow into effect, but Jindal said he does not expect to need these measures.

12 of the 18 drilling rigs off the Louisiana coastline are being evacuated.

Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne said anyone looking to volunteer to help with preparation operations or after the storm with clean-up can find open positions at volunteerlouisiana.gov.

Jindal closed by reminding Louisiana citizens to “hope for the best while preparing for the worst.”

The recent spate of random gun violence has predictably reignited the “right to bear arms” debate, with politicians from both sides of the aisle using these recent incidents as evidence either for stricter or for looser gun laws. Arguments from both sides are flawed — the world created by the right’s desire to loosen gun control legislation would probably resemble a shoot-em-up scene from a mid-century Western flick, while the left’s version with stricter controls ensures the upper hand for criminals who disregard the law and acquire guns anyway. It is unclear whether arming or disarming everyone would have changed the outcome in any of the recent cases of gun violence, but there is certainly a common thread among them: the unstable mind that pulled the trigger.

James Holmes, who gunned down 12 and injured 58 people at a Colorado movie theater, had been seeing a psychiatrist who warned police of a potential threat weeks before Holmes opened fire. Emotional disturbances and alcoholism plagued Wade Page before he opened fire in a Wisconsin Sikh temple, injuring four and killing six others, including himself. Texas shooter Thomas Caffall had been similarly suffering from mental issues. Even though a security guard’s heroics may have prevented a massacre in Washington this week, it is likely that evidence will indicate that Floyd Corkins II, the gunman in that case, had been suffering from some psychological turmoil.

Generally such disturbed individuals display many clear warning signals before perpetrating violence. Alarming behavior, emotional distress, previous incidents — the offender was all but destined to act. Media reports on each incident are so similar that they appear to come from a common template.

Perhaps the clarity of hindsight and our need to find reason during tragedy exaggerates this phenomenon, but I think there is something else at work. If we can so easily uncover psychological triggers after a shooting has already occurred, we should be able to do the same before anyone gets hurt. But we don’t, and it’s because we’re afraid to so.

Despite major advancements in science and theory alike, mental illness remains massively stigmatized in our society. To acknowledge mental illness in ourselves or in others, especially those close to us, is to acknowledge a reality wholly incompatible with our highly technical, precision-based and constantly-moving world. The invisibility of mental illness allows us to deny its existence until it manifests in our physical reality — as violence, as suicide or as any danger to ourselves and others.

Failing to address mental illness allows the illness to grow until its effects are undeniable and, sometimes, indiscriminating between the self and others. Had Page received adequate help for his emotional distress and drinking habits, the Wisconsin Sikh temple may have had a peaceful morning of prayer. If officers had not shrugged off warnings about Holmes, a crowd of Colorado moviegoers may have simply enjoyed the latest Batman movie. And had he been compliant with his medication regimen, Jared Loughner — who shot and killed six and injured 14, including former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona last year — may have found peace from the voices in his head.

The horrible irony of mental illness is that sufferers are often left without the capacity to help themselves — they may not be able to recognize their illness or might feel intrinsically averse to receiving help. Thus, we must recognize and acknowledge mental illness when it is present and make sure that adequate treatment is given.

According to the National Institutes of Health, one in four adults experience a mental health disorder in a given year, and of those adults, fewer than one-third of adults with a diagnosable mental disorder receive mental health services. It is time to end the stigma. We need to accept mental illness as a natural part of human existence.

The incident occurred near Fidelity St., about a block away from the Texas A&M U. campus. A Code Maroon alert cautioned everyone to steer clear of the area and that at 12:29 p.m., there was an active shooter.

The College Station Police Department has said that there is no longer a danger to the public, but ask that civilians avoid the area.

“Right around 12:10 or so, I was driving down Wellborn with my friend, and all of a sudden we saw cars taking a U-turn because there was a cop car in the middle of Wellborn, out of his car with his pistol in his hand,” Joseph Puente, senior telecommunication media studies major, said. “We found the back road to get as close to the scene as we could.”

Puente said that he and his friend, A&M senior Will Holleman, were about five houses down from the shooter, and were hiding behind their car.

“As soon as we parked a SWAT team pulled up behind us, and we saw the SWAT team eventually fall into the house and then we heard 26 shots after that,” Puente said.

Holleman said there had been crossfire before they arrived, and they were at the scene for about 30 minutes.

“It was really intense there for a little bit. They barricaded off the whole area,” he said.

According to the College Station Medical Center, three people were admitted with gunshot wounds. Two other patients were complaining of dizziness and chest pains.

Campus is currently in a break between classes, so fewer students than normal are in College Station, but there are a number of apartment buildings near the area where the shooting occurred.

“I was eating lunch when all of a sudden I heard a ton of sirens and then a ton of shots, I don’t know how many it was,” said 2009 A&M grad Sarah Welborn. “After the shots were fired I heard more police officers, and then everything got really quiet.”

A recent study conducted by the Center for Adolescent Research and Education at Susquehanna U. and Students Against Destructive Decisions sought to examine the safety of student hosts and visitors during overnight college visits.

Although Duke U. employs strict policies to prevent such inappropriate conduct during visits, conduct violations result in students getting their admissions rescinded once every two or three years, said Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions.

The study, based on the responses of 270 college visitors aged 16 to 19, found that, aside from the 16 percent who drank alcohol, 17 percent engaged in sexual activities and 5 percent used drugs other than alcohol.

“Teens need to understand the choices they might be faced with and their consequences,” said CARE Director Stephen Wallace. “What is their response going to be, and how are they going to make the decision they want to make?”

More than half of the surveyed students who either consumed alcohol or had sex were doing so for the first time in their lives.

The survey was a follow-up to a study also conducted by CARE in 2003, which found that 26 percent of visitors were drinking alcohol, 28 percent were engaging in sexual behavior and 22 percent were using drugs.

The earlier study encompassed all visits, including those to see siblings and friends, but the recent survey focused specifically on students visiting for the admissions process, which in part explains the lower numbers, Wallace noted.

Flawed perceptions

First time behavior is a particular cause for concern, because it can establish risky behavior as a social norm for college students, Wallace said.

“It creates a perception that that’s what college life is all about,” he said. “Sixteen-year-olds absorb the culture and establish behavioral patterns that will last throughout their four years in college.”

He noted that visiting students may feel pressured by older college students to engage in activities they might otherwise reject. Parents therefore play a key role in establishing expectations for their children and engaging them in dialogue about decision-making.

Academic institutions can also establish measures to prevent risky behavior by visiting students and to protect visitors and their hosts, he said. Visits can be shortened and moved from the weekend to weekdays, when fewer parties are held. Universities can also train hosts and require them to sign contracts, Wallace said.

At Duke, hosts and admitted students participating in Blue Devil Days—a series of two-day admitted student programs when visitors can stay overnight with freshmen hosts—are required to adhere to the Duke Community Standard by signing a consent form, undergraduate admissions officer Morgan Kirkland, Trinity ’11, wrote in an email Monday. The consent form explicitly prohibits the possession and consumption of illegal drugs and alcohol for underage individuals. Visiting students are also required to communicate with their hosts about their whereabouts and planned activities.

Few reports at Duke

The undergraduate admissions office usually handles one or two pre-enrollment conduct violations each year, Guttentag said. In cases of serious conduct violations, the responsible student meets with Guttentag and Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek over the summer, whereupon the students may be asked to reapply or be required to take a gap year depending on the degree of violation.

Students are rarely prohibited from reapplying, he added.

Although Kirkland said there were no official reports of violations this year, parties, alcohol consumption and visits to Shooters II are certainly part of Blue Devil Days.

Tiffany Dong, a sophomore, said she was one of the few prospective freshmen who stayed in the dormitories instead of attending a party and was surprised to hear that so many visitors were going out.

Josh Izzard, also a sophomore, said he briefly attended a party during his overnight stay and that it was the most uncomfortable he felt during the whole visit.

“It was the weirdest part of the whole experience,” Izzard said. “It would be difficult to ban, but cutting down on [parties] would definitely be an improvement.”

He noted that hosts should emphasize alternative night-time activities, such as Devils After Dark events, to reduce the amount of partying during Blue Devil Days.

On a broader level, the overnight college visiting environment is improving, Wallace said, citing the 2003 survey.

“Directionally, there has been a heightened awareness and many colleges and universities are taking steps,” Wallace said. “At the same time, it remains a serious problem that we need to continue to combat.”

At a press conference held at the Auburn Police station, Chief Tommy Dawson addressed the closure of the case with a final thought to the victims’ families.

“You’ll always be in our prayers and thoughts,” Dawson said. “It’s nice to have him in custody, it’s nice to have him in jail, but the most important thing to remember is the families of the victims.”

Leonard is now in custody and is being transported to Lee County sometime Wednesday or Thursday, according to Dawson.

In addition to the three counts of capital murder, Leonard is now also being charged with two counts of assault in the 1st degree, according to Dawson.

Leonard’s attorney Susan James said that her office brought in Leonard and that she and her son picked him up and drove him to meet investigators, according to the Associated Press.

James did not specify where Leonard was, but revealed he was about 50 miles away.

“He was very calm, very tired and very ready to get this over with and very respectful,” she said to the AP. “When the full story is told, it may sound different than the perception now.”

James also told the AP that she was not “retained to represent” Leonard.

Leonard, the prime suspect in the shooting at University Heights, is wanted on three counts of capital murder and has been pursued since Sunday in what Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson called an “active manhunt.”

The manhunt may be over, but Dawson said that full closure is somewhat impossible.

“In a case like this, there’s no relief because those boys aren’t coming home tonight,” Dawson said.

Dawson added that even Leonard probably has somebody grieving for him.

“Everybody’s got a mama,” Dawson said.

Montgomery Police Chief Kevin Murphy commended Auburn’s police force, and Dawson in particular, for their unrelenting pursuit of Leonard.

“I’m impressed with the leadership and fortitude of Chief Dawson,” Murphy said. “The Auburn Police Department is one of the finest in the country.”

Auburn University President Jay Gogue also showed admiration for the Auburn Police in a statement issued Tuesday night.

“We appreciate the dedication and commitment of the Auburn City Police Department and other law enforcement agencies,” Gogue said.

However, like Dawson, Gogue also wished to remind the public that the capture of Leonard does not change what happened Saturday night.

“This is a difficult time for our campus and community,” Gogue said. “We’re remembering those who lost their lives, and it’s important that we pull together to help those who are grieving and recovering.”

A stoic Chizik took the podium Tuesday afternoon at the Auburn Athletic Complex auditorium and spoke measuredly about the tumult of emotions gripping the friends and families of the victims and his role in communicating with the families in what he described as “an incredibly difficult 72 hours.”

“It is hard to put into words the difficulty that a lot of people are facing right now,” Chizik said. “It is a tough period of time, there are not a lot of answers right now, but we are going to continue day-by-day.”

However, in the face of numerous questions attempting to relate the tragedy to the status of the football team as a whole, Chizik had a blunt reminder for the media in attendance.

“I am not worried about football, I don’t care about the football season,” Chizik said. “This meeting is about young guys who are trying to get past a very tragic thing … (and) I have got one goal, and that is to provide anything we can to anybody that was affected.”

“I want everybody to be mindful that there were six victims,” Chizik said.

Immediately after the shooting occurred, Chizik said, “social media got things out quick,” and he and his staff tried to quickly warn the players.

“At that moment, my first concern was that everyone on the football team along with anybody else that was anywhere near the incident was safe,” Chizik said.

He declined to comment on whether or not he was the first to contact the parents of the deceased, but said that they did communicate throughout the weekend.

A few of Auburn’s current players were scheduled to speak at the press conference, but were not ready to speak openly about the incident, according to Chizik.

“It wasn’t the right time,” Chizik said. “Several young men that we have are not ready to do this, and I’m not ready to do this, but that is part of my job.”

Chizik did say that the players were utilizing the university’s counseling services in an attempt to “come to some kind of better place.”

Of the emotional players and coaches meeting Sunday morning, Chizik described a cathartic group session in which the players were allowed to speak and grieve openly.

“It was a very difficult meeting, and there were a lot of emotions that spilled out,” Chizik said. “At the end it was a good meeting simply because we needed to all be on the same page of where we were at and how we felt.”

Eric Mack, the third Auburn player shot Saturday, is expected to make a full recovery and is currently able to walk around, according to Chizik.

Chizik also took a moment to commend the Auburn Police Department and Chief Tommy Dawson for their dedication and communication throughout the investigation.

“We were on top of it when it began and communication was flawless in terms of us staying abreast with everything that happened,” Chizik said. “I’m very appreciative of the way that was unfolded.”

Phillips’s funeral services will be held Friday at 1 p.m. at Handley High School in Roanoke, Ala. and Chrstian’s will take place at 1 p.m. Saturday at the J.E. Mathis Municipal Auditorium in Valdosta, Ga.

Pitts’s funeral services will take place Friday at 1 p.m. as well, but the location has not been announced.

Visitation for Pitts will take place Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Harris Funeral Home in Opelika.

Chizik said transportation will be provided to the services.

“We are going to … provide transportation for everybody, and not just football team-wise, but for everybody in the athletic department,” Chizik said.

Desmonte Leonard, 22, is currently evading law enforcement for allegedly shooting three people, including two former Auburn University football players, and wounding another three people during a party at the University Heights apartment complex on the night of June 9.

Jeremy Thomas, 18, of Montgomery was arrested on a warrant charging him with Hindering Prosecution 1st Degree.

Jeremy allegedly fled the scene with Leonard.

Public records indicate that Jeremy was out of jail on a $75,000 bond for a previous manslaughter charge against a 14-year-old girl in Montgomery.

Jeremy is set to appear before a court June 18 for this previous charge.

No bond has been set for Jeremy and his current charge.

Gabriel Thomas, 41, of Montgomery was arrested for providing false information to police and hindering prosecution.

The bond for Gabriel has been set at $15,000.

Police have not indicated any sort of relationship between Gabriel and Jeremy at the current time.

The FBI and U.S. Marshals have offered a $15,000 reward for Leonard’s arrest.

Leonard, 22, is currently evading law enforcement for allegedly shooting three people, including two former Auburn U. football players, and wounding another three people during a party at the University Heights apartment complex in Auburn on the night of June 9.

A photographer from the Associated Press reported that all officers left the house around 2:25 a.m. this morning.

Sources via social media indicate that as of 9:11 a.m., the house appears to have been completely vacated by the authorities.

Auburn Police confirmed that there will be a media briefing on the hunt for Leonard at 10 a.m. at the Auburn Police Division located at 141 N. Ross St.

The Opelika-Auburn News will live stream the media briefing starting at 9:55 a.m. at http://www2.oanow.com/live

Leonard, whose nickname has been given as “Woosie,” has seen various outlets of support via social media.

Statements from late last night still echo the frustration of this morning.

“Unfortunately, we’re no different than where we were,” Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said.

22-year-old Desmonte Leonard of Montgomery is confirmed to be the suspect of the shooting, according to Auburn police.

A warrant for three counts of capital murder has been issued.

Leonard is accused of shooting Xavier Moss, John Robertson and Auburn football player Eric Mack.

In a statement made to espn.com, Gene Chizik said, “I am devastated by the passing of three young men, including two that I personally knew in Ed Christian and Ladarious Phillips and my heart goes out to their families.”

Moss was released from East Alabama Medical Center, and Robertson is currently in critical condition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Mack is being treated for a non-life threatening condition at the East Alabama Medical Center.

Leonard “is considered to be armed and dangerous,” said Police Chief Tommy Dawson.

Leonard’s vehicle, a white Chevrolet Caprice, was found in Macon County off of Wire Road.

Dawson said he believes Leonard is on foot in Montgomery.

U.S. Marshalls and local police officials are conducting an active manhunt for Leonard.

Dawson confirmed two other persons of interest involved in the shooting. Their identities were not released at today’s press conference, but Dawson said they are not Auburn students.

Dawson had no comment on additional evidence or Leonard’s motive.

“Not appropriate at this time,” Dawson said.

The walk through a parking lot can be arguably life changing. It could be a time to reflect on just happened, or where you are going.

A November night, FAMU’s charter buses pulled in to the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando, many of the Marching 100 students were probably celebrating the band’s performance at half-time.

The musicians left the buses and unloaded their instruments. The orange and green uniforms and shiny instruments were hauled off and into their designated rooms.

Students would return to one bus, with a different type of excitement.

“The autopsy revealed extensive contusions of his chest, arms, shoulder, and back with extensive hemorrhage,” Florida’s district nine medical examiner’s press release said.

In a statement given Wednesday, Florida’s state attorney’s office filed charges against 13 individuals. All have been charged with hazing (a first degree misdemeanor.)

“It is our opinion that the death of Robert Champion, a 26-year-old male, is the result of hemorrhagic shock due to soft tissue hemorrhage, incurred by blunt force trauma sustained during a hazing incident,” the statement ended.

11 of those students are also charged with hazing resulting in death (a third degree felony) which carries a maximum of six years in prison.
So far, eight men have turned themselves into police departments across the state of Florida. Three are out of state.

Rikki Wills and Caleb Jackson were the first arrested on Wednesday, at Leon County Jail. They were both charged additionally with hazing causing an injury or death.

Jackson was also in violation of probation, but Wills, a drum major like Champion, bonded out.

On Thursday, Benjamin McNamee and Jessie Baskin turned themselves in to Miami-Dade County Jail, where they later posted bail. Their Orange County warrants said “college hazing causing injury or death.”

Harold Finley was arrested at Palm Beach County Jail, charged with felony hazing causing injury or death. Finley is still in custody.

College hazing causing injury or death was written on Bryan Jones’ warrant, and he too turned himself in Thursday- to the Hillsborough County’s jail. He bonded out.

Aaron Golson and drum major Shawn Turner had a $15,000 bond on each of them. Both turned themselves in to the Gadsden County Jail yesterday.

Turner has bailed himself out.

(RECENT: Ryan Dean, 21, and Jonathan Boyce, 24, surrendered to police today, Friday, at the Leon County Jail.)

Of the 13 young men who are accused of being a part of Champion’s death, 11 will be facing six years in prison if convicted.

The three out-of-state students said that they will surrender themselves. They have promised to make the walk from their vehicles to the front of door of a police station.

With charges for participation in a dangerous ritual-a ritual on a bus, parked safely in a parking lot.

In reading a statement that included the charges, State Attorney Lawson Lamar said Champion was “pummeled to death” resulting in internal bleeding, which led to his death in Orlando on Nov. 19, 2011. He called the hazing culture in American universities “bullying with a tradition.”

“It’s something that will continue to happen out of sight until someone like Robert Champion loses his life,” Lamar told reporters in Orlando, a live stream of which was available online.

Lamar said 13 people would be charged, at least 11 with felony hazing, but he did not say whether they were all students. He refused to divulge names, saying that because they were flight risks, his office would hold off until after the arrests have been made. He declared a media blackout on the case during the proceedings, explaining, “We will be doing our talking in court.”

“This case is too important for the future of Florida,” he said.

Lamar had planned not to answer any questions, but as he walked away, a reporter asked about the charges. Why only homicide, the reporter wondered.

“The testimony obtained to date does not [suggest] murder,” he said, referring to the legal, intent-to-kill stipulation that must accompany murder charges.

Champion died after the annual Florida Classic football game last November, and his death has mired the university in scrutiny for its lack of response to past hazing allegations. According to information that the Famuan received, the university received fresh complaints of hazing in the days leading to the young man’s death.

Champion’s filed his filed a lawsuit against the university and against the bus company, Fabulous Coaches, on which the young man died in a ritual known as “Crossing ‘Bus C’.” FAMU Director of Bands Julian White, who was hastily put on leave pending dismissal following Champion’s death, also filed suit against FAMU.

The 190-page report faults ineffectual administrative decision-making, poor police planning and weak chains of communication for the pepper-spraying. Along with the findings of a task force led by former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, the report includes another study by the Kroll consulting company hired to investigate the incident.

“We aren’t making anybody happy with our report because we found a lot that did happen that shouldn’t have happened,” Reynoso said in a town hall meeting Wednesday at UC Davis.

UC Davis administrators and police officials failed to adequately question the timing of police action, the necessity and legality of police force and the claim that many protesters were not UC Davis students, the report states.

The pepper-spraying began shortly after police raided an Occupy Davis encampment organized the day before.

A team of UC Davis administrators and police officials decided to take down the tents out of fear that many protesters were not students — although there was little evidence to support this claim — and that incidents could occur between unaffiliated protesters and students that would harm the community, the report states.

The report adds that administrators and police officials did not carry out the raid at the right time.

“Three o’clock in the afternoon on a sunny fall day at the center of the campus Quad seems guaranteed to bring the maximum number of onlookers and protesters to the scene, and in fact this is exactly what occurred,” the Kroll report states.

The report also takes issue with a disorganized chain of command during the protest, where lieutenants did not always follow directives by then-Police Chief Annete Spicuzza.

Lt. John Pike and unidentified “Officer O” employed pepper spray although they was not authorized to do so, and had not been trained to use the more powerful type of pepper spray they had. The spray was also used improperly at too close of a distance.

In a press release Wednesday, state assemblymember Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, said she will pursue legislation based on the report.

She said the unauthorized use of the pepper spray “gives great weight to the Task Force’s recommendation that changes must be made involving the training, organization, and operation of UC Police Departments.”

The report’s recommendations to strengthen oversight and responses of campus leadership during protests include re-training officers and designating a senior official responsible for overseeing protests and civil disobedience.

The report stops short of recommending disciplinary action for police officers or administrators. Instead, a campus police Internal Affairs investigation will handle administrative sanctions and “would address disciplinary action for the police officers.”

That investigation, however, is confidential. The officers subjected to the investigation declined to be interviewed by the Reynoso task force.

The release of the report follows weeks of litigation between a police officers union and the UC due to union concerns over privacy issues. The two parties struck an agreement Tuesday to redact most officers’ names but keep critiques of their actions in the report.

In the town hall, Reynoso said he was grateful that the agreement allows for the public release of the report, so that the actions of those involved are understood and worked through for future incidents.

UC President Mark Yudof agreed.

“We can and must do better,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Chancellor Katehi to repair the damage caused by this incident and to move this great campus forward.”

Like a new business owner on crack, drug dealers face risks people can’t possibly understand without personal experience. If the dealer conducts himself well and quits while he’s ahead, he might avoid the law or getting stabbed in the gut. Other dealers stick with it too long, and eventually screw up, usually falling into debt or onto the hood of a police car. But there are many kinds of drug dealers, all of whom have varying levels of success. Here are the stories of three drug dealers I got to know during the past three months.

Hit it and quit it

Some drug dealers get caught and serve time. Other drug dealers leave the business before they get in trouble. A happy member of the latter group is Jake, an infantry Marine.

Jake, who declined to be identified by full name, was a drug dealer in high school, from the time he was 15 to 19 years old. He sold cocaine, medical-grade marijuana, prescription painkillers and other pills. After four years of making as much as $2,500 each month, Jake saved up several thousand dollars.

Jake said it all started with his first time buying weed: “I bought a nug of marijuana and flipped it double to someone else for what I paid for it,” he said. “I figured, ‘Hey, I can use this shit to make money.’”

Jake also tried the drugs he sold in order to make sure he wasn’t selling anything bad.

“I wouldn’t sell (a drug) without knowing what it did,” he said.

Drug dealers aren’t very averse to risk. In addition to the dangers of using some drugs, dealing comes with personal risks. Past the legal ramifications, the trade is by nature a lawless one, where one dealer might screw over or kill the competition — or even his own customers — so the idea can seem daunting.

Just consider the risk of transporting an illegal product. On a drive up to Phoenix with a kilo of cocaine, Jake had a somewhat close call with the Border Patrol. He was pulled over, but the dogs weren’t called to his truck, so he didn’t get caught. Good luck is a precious commodity in dealing.

Most of Jake’s customers never knew his name.

“You had to watch your back and watch your buddy’s back,” Jake said. “Someone could be watching you.”

In order to avoid suspicion, Jake never used his drug dealing money to make huge purchases — a small trip, food, a couple of college classes and some small investments. He also had another thing going for him.

“Coming from a wealthy family, I was kind of expected to have a decent amount of cash on me at all times,” he said. “I always put it on that. I never said it was from a secondary income.”

His family never found out. And he never let his friends get involved, for his sake and theirs, Jake said.

Eventually, Jake got tired of drug dealing and started looking to the future.

“I realized that the lifestyle would soon catch up with me. All good things come to an end, right?” he said. “When you’re in that kind of work, it’s always going to come to a bad end, unless you come out while you’re ahead. So I made the choice to get out while I was ahead and not get caught up in it.”

Jake is shipping out to Afghanistan this year. Once he returns, he’ll be greeted by family, friends and several thousand dollars in savings and investments.

Dorm dealing

College kids like to experiment, but unless a student meets a friend of a friend, it’s usually difficult to find a consistent drug dealer. This is where the dorm dealers come in.

Grant Hull, an anthropology senior at U. Arizona, sold small amounts of marijuana from his dorm room during his freshman year.

Unlike Jake, Grant was already smoking marijuana on a daily basis before he began to sell it. However, it was just as easy for him to get started as a drug dealer.

“I started with a few of my friends,” Grant said. “One day we decided — we knew this kid who could get us ounces — so we just went over and got one.”

While Grant liked the quick cash, his friends weren’t the dealing type.

“We sold the first ounce together, but they weren’t really into it so much,” Grant said. “I just knew people who bought weed and smoked weed, so I told them that if they needed any to just come to my room.”

According to Grant, the dorm dealing scene was pretty relaxed. For the most part, he said, Grant kept his business between friends and fellow dorm-dwellers. All he had to do to stay safe was keep the door locked.

“That way, if I was in class or something, people would know (to go down the hall) and be like, ‘Hey, can I get a gram?’” Grant said.

For the most part, his plan worked. Unlike more reckless dealers, Grant never ended up in the Daily Wildcat’s Police Beat section. Instead, he ended up with approximately $100 to $200 a week and a well-funded spring break.

“That’s why I don’t really have (the money) anymore,” Grant said. “Just buying stupid shit like clothes, more weed. I was pretty irresponsible with it.”

Grant wasn’t running a $10,000 operation. He said the only worry he had was being ratted out by someone, which is something that every dealer I talked to admitted was a concern. Still, even though he was a small-time dorm dealer, Grant ran into a problem that ultimately ended his business when he ran out of weed and found that the frat guy who normally sold to him had also run out. A friend of his offered to front him some, which this new dealer had no right to do in the first place.

“It wasn’t his (the dealer’s), it was his friend’s, who was also a dealer,” Grant said. “So (his friend) got pissed at me and there was this misunderstanding.”

Grant ended up owing money and decided to quit because it was near the end of the school year. “I was like, ‘Fuck it,’” he said. “It would have been a pain in the ass to get another ounce and start the process again.”

But that was his freshman year. During his sophomore year, Grant started selling from an apartment. However, he quit for the “final” time when he gave up smoking marijuana. Of course, like anyone who truly loves weed, he started smoking again. But his dealing life was over.

At the same time, other dorm dealers picked up the slack. “I’d say for any dorm, there’s probably at least one or two kids (selling weed),” Grant said. “When I did, there were at least three or four other guys I knew in the dorms — at my dorm, at least — who were doing it at any given time.”

No matter what, there will always be a place for students of all backgrounds to get their weed. Not all explorers of the mind — psychonauts — are students, though. According to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, at least 22 million people in the United States use illegal drugs. So where do the non-students get their drugs?

Wheeler dealer: Sticking with it

Ordering pizza is pretty awesome: Suddenly, pizza magically arrives at the door to cure cravings for a small price. Some drug dealers do the same thing, except with a pharmacopeia of drugs. This deliveryman is Tom Ado. Yes, he requested a name inspired by “Pokémon.”

He’s certainly not your typical shady street dealer, who sits on the corner selling bags of oregano. He’s not one of those rave people who sells pills. He’s not a kingpin. He’s something in between it all, and he loves his job.

“Even cash-broke, I’ve found that (drug dealing) is what makes me happy,” Tom said. “It’s based on passion. It keeps me moving forward.”

Tom doesn’t even consider dealing to be a job.

“I would call it a means to a means,” Tom said. “I’m fundraising … for legal enterprises I’ll have in the future, such as opening a local head shop, or becoming a wholesale distributor of glassware.”

If you haven’t guessed by now, Tom really loves weed.

In fact, sharing his love of weed is what got him into the business. Before a Thanksgiving feast last year, Tom smoked in California with his cousin, who is connected to Los Angeles’ medical marijuana scene through friends and a medical card. Just three months later, Tom started transporting high-grade marijuana from California to feed the hungry smokers in Tucson.

“I was with my cousin and we were discussing our passions,” Tom said. “He explained to me that there is a way, if you’re willing to be self-motivated and work for yourself — which isn’t just all freedom, it’s a lot of responsibility — you’re able to make a lot of money and you’re able to be in control of all the aspects of your occupation.”

The autonomy, Tom said, was one of the reasons the job appealed to him so much.

Despite his passion, Tom isn’t making much profit. He ended up owing his cousin quite a bit of dough: $3,500. On average, he only makes $70 a week, though business seems to be picking up.

Tom’s been expanding his sales to other drugs. He extracts lysergic acid-amide, or LSA, from morning glory seeds. Tom also sells LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA and even the most powerful psychedelic in the world: dimethyltryptamine, a drug naturally found in a vast number of organisms, including human beings.

Like Jake, Tom also tries the drugs he sells. While he mostly trips for his own enjoyment, trying every drug allows him to test the purity of the product and gives him a better idea of how to market the drugs’ effects to potential buyers.

“This is an industry that doesn’t have regulations for what you can do to your customers or to your product,” Tom said. “It’s very important that people in this business follow sound business practice, as well as a few other precautionary rules. Otherwise, it could turn into something more dangerous or hazardous, which you’ll see with crappy drug dealers.”

But Tom’s no used car salesman.He believes that a drug deal is only as shady as the seller and buyer make it and that a typical sale is just like “meeting someone for coffee or tea.” He drives up to the house, or the buyer comes to him, and the two have a good conversation over a smoldering bowl of weed. But Tom still keeps it professional. “I’m not going to keep you up all night chit-chatting,” he said.

No violence, no paranoia, no problems.

Unlike Jake and Grant, Tom plans to continue dealing for a while. He said that eventually, he’ll open up a smoke shop and have other people deal for him while he just skims off the top.

And as long as Arizona’s medical marijuana program stays in place, he shouldn’t have a problem finding people to buy from. With a medical card, he will trade different kinds of marijuana at pot clubs, where patients and caregivers meet to share their various kinds of medicine.

“My hope is that we can all become licensed to carry all of these heavily regulated narcotics,” Tom said, “so that this isn’t a legal issue anymore.”

What it all means

If anything really seems taboo here, it’s probably that the products in question are illegal. Just imagine if the dealers were selling roses or caviar. Would anybody question it?

Selling a product people want is an attractive job. Like a business owner, the dealer manages his own finances, can choose his customers and partners and has full control over his operation. This comes with a certain set of skills and character traits that are similar to those of entrepreneurs.

In fact, according to a study by U. California, Santa Cruz, drug dealers are 11 to 21 percent more likely to choose self-employment than non-drug dealers. Some of the traits described in the study are the ones Tom expressed: a yearning for autonomy, low aversion to risk and a dislike for working under people.

The study also found that basic job skills and an education had either little or a negative effect on the likelihood of an individual becoming self-employed. So perhaps drug dealing is good training for future business endeavors. Maybe not the safest training, but training all the same.

A National Business Incubation Association study found that 80 percent of businesses fail during the first five years. And the UC study mentioned that drug dealers may lack the knowledge of business opportunities and financial capital needed to be successful — or even get started — in business.

So maybe business students make the best dealers.

I’m not advising drug dealing as a profession. It’s a truly dangerous job, and every drug dealer I met has had some pretty bad experiences, both financially and personally. However, some dealers find that the danger is worth the money, autonomy and enjoyment they get from the job.

Four dormitories — Amos Hall, Bruce Hall, Brackenridge Hall and Panther Hall — received the first set of bomb threats around 4 a.m. The buildings were evacuated and then reopened around 6:30 a.m.

The next threat came at 11:11 a.m. Pitt sent out an Emergency Notification System alert notifying the campus of a bomb threat at the University Club. The threat also forced an evacuation at neighboring Thackeray Hall about a half hour later.

“I wasn’t expecting it to happen here,” said Mallory Koch, a junior who works in the University Club. “And it wasn’t coupled with anything else. It’s such a random, small building.”

Before that threat was cleared, four more buildings received threats. A little before 1 p.m., Frick Fine Arts, McCormick Hall, Posvar Hall and David Lawrence Hall were evacuated because of threats.

At 2:20 p.m., three other campus buildings — Heinz Chapel, Panther Central and Victoria Hall — received threats.

The buildings were evacuated, and by 3:25 p.m. all were cleared of threats.

N. John Cooper, the dean of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, sent out an email Monday morning to all faculty outlining how best to accommodate students who want to go home for the semester and to address the lack of an attendance policy. He asked faculty for “flexibility.”

He also used the email as an opportunity to voice his feelings on the recent spree of bomb threats.

“Recent events constitute an attack on the University that is unprecedented within higher education. It is an attack on everything we stand for as teachers, academics and members of this community, and we need to work together and do our best to make this the best term yet at Pitt for as many of our students as we can,” the email said.

Stephen McVeigh, a sophomore majoring in architectural studies, sat outside Frick Fine Arts just before 1 p.m. He and his classmates were setting up for their Foundation Drawing class when an alarm sounded and they received instructions to evacuate.

McVeigh said that he has missed at least six classes due to the threats.

“I am not frustrated, but I am worried we are not going to finish this semester,” McVeigh said.

Unlike some students’ families who have kept them from continuing to attend classes on campus, McVeigh does not feel that there is any real danger to University affiliates.

“Do I think a building is actually going to blow up? No,” McVeigh said.

Special Agent William Crowley, Pittsburgh media coordinator for the FBI, declined comment, except to say that the FBI was cooperating with the University.

Pitt spokesperson John Fedele said that he did not know how Monday’s threats were received and said he had no further information on the threats outside of the ENS alerts.

Shawn Brooks, the associate dean of students and director of Residence Life, sent out an email to all residence hall students that detailed the extra hours during which the University Counseling Center will be available to students.

The Counseling Center can be reached at 412-648-7930.

The campus received three sets of threats: at Thackeray Hall; at the Cathedral of Learning, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Tower C, and at Victoria Hall, the Frick Fine Arts building and the Music Building. This brings the total bomb threat count of the semester up to 19, with 12 of the threats occurring this week.

Pitt police Chief Tim Delaney said if the person or people conducting the threats is doing so because they have a message or an issue, he would be there to help them resolve their issue.

“I want to see if the individual doing this will contact me,” Delaney said. “It may be a student, it may not be a student. Whoever it is, give me a call.”

Thackeray Hall received the day’s first threat Wednesday morning. Pitt sent out an Emergency Notification System alert around 10:15 a.m. notifying people of the bomb threat and advising them to evacuate the building. The threat was cleared about 45 minutes later.

Nearly six and a half hours afterward, another ENS alert notified the campus of three more threats at the Cathedral of Learning, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Tower C. The buildings were evacuated, and the threats were all cleared by 7:30 p.m.

An ENS alert said that Cathedral would reopen at 6 a.m. today.

Two hours after the three threats were cleared, Pitt sent out another ENS alert at 9:20 p.m. for three more bomb threats — this time at Victoria Hall, Frick Fine Arts and the Music Building. The threatened buildings were evacuated, although the Lothrop Hall dormitory, which is attached to Victoria Hall, was not evacuated.

Around 11:50 p.m. the bomb threats at the three buildings were cleared.

Pitt spokesman Robert Hill said in an email that the threat at Thackeray Hall was written on a slip of paper found in a men’s restroom.

Delaney said that the threats for the Cathedral of Learning, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Tower C came from emails sent to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters.

Delaney also commented on the “person of interest” whom Hill said the University had previously identified in mid-March after the first four threats.

“We handed over their information to the FBI,” he said.

Delaney also said that he did not have a figure on the amount of money the bomb threats are costing the University, given the different number of agencies that are involved. He did say the University would attempt to calculate the total cost at a later date.

“Right now, we’re just focused on responding to the threats,” he said.

Pitt spokesman John Fedele said in an email that the direct costs associated with each incident involve multiple factors, including the secure evacuation of each building and subsequent investigations by Pitt police and partners at the local, state, county and federal levels.

Indirect costs of the threats include interference with class schedules and the disruption of staff and faculty work days, Fedele said.

Pitt junior Jonathan Andrews said he was well aware of what Wednesday’s Cathedral of Learning bomb threat cost him — “about 80 bucks.”

Andrews said that he lost two hours of work to attend his night class, plus the costs of parking, gas and the dinner he had to buy on campus because he was not home.

He also cited other negative effects of the ongoing threats, including the monetary loss to Pitt and the way the threats have affected the University community.

“It’s sad,” he said.

Shortly before the threats to Posvar, Tower C and the Cathedral, Shawn Brooks, the associate dean of students and director of Residence Life, sent out an email to all residence hall students that detailed the hours counselors will be available for students who want to discuss the string of bomb threats.

Resident Assistants in Towers have begun advising their residents to pack backpacks with supplies in the event that another bomb threat occurs in the middle of the night, as did the one that emptied Towers at 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Freshman Kaylyn Farneth, a resident of Tower A, said her RA told residents to pack kits to prepare in case of another bomb threat.

“We were told to pack and to find another place to stay if possible if another threat happens,” Farneth said.

Avi Slone, a sophomore who lives in Lothrop Hall, said that housing carts are now in the lobby of the dormitory.

“I’ve heard from many, many people that they’re getting ready to pack up and go home,” Slone said.

Staff writers Pat McAteer and Michael Ringling contributed to this report.

Pitt Emergency Notification System alerts notified students about the threats at the Cathedral of Learning and Chevron Science Center, while the Litchfield Towers dormitories were evacuated early in the morning without a campus-wide alert. Tuesday’s threats brought this semester’s bomb threat total to 12 and the total for the week to five.

Early Tuesday morning, the Litchfield Towers complex became the fourth building on campus to receive a general bomb threat — the 10th of the semester. ENS alerts went out for Chevron and the Cathedral at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., respectively.

Shortly before the general bomb threat at the Cathedral Tuesday afternoon, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg sent out an email that evoked the memory of the March 8 Western Psychiatric Institute shooting on Pitt’s campus.

“Particularly given last month’s shootings at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and recent reminders of violence on other campuses, those responsible for these threats not only lack basic respect for the thousands of people whose lives have been disrupted by them but must possess a heartless streak,” he said in the email. The email went on to say that the University would seek to prosecute those responsible to the “fullest extent of the law.”

Neither a University spokesperson nor someone from the Pittsburgh’s FBI office was available for comment.

Following the threat to the Cathedral, the University posted on the my.pitt portal that they have opened classrooms for Saturday classes on April 14 and April 21, and that students should be aware of their make-up schedules by April 7.

Enrico Mazza is one of the more than 1,800 students who live in the Towers dormitories. At around 3:30 a.m., he woke up to the sound of alarms telling students to evacuate. A Pitt ENS alert was not sent out about the evacuation.

“It’s getting annoying,” the biology major said in Towers Lobby at 10:30 a.m., still wearing pajama pants. “I don’t want to do it anymore, especially when I’m asleep.”

Buses brought some Towers residents up to the Petersen Events Center, while others waited in David Lawrence Hall for Towers to reopen two and a half hours later.

Several hours after residents reentered Towers, Pitt evacuated Chevron. The building was reopened nearly an hour and a half later. This is Chevron’s third bomb threat of the semester.

The Cathedral of Learning’s evacuation caused freshman Alexis Scott to miss her calculus class for a third time due to threats.

A Pitt ENS alert sent around 2:30 p.m. alerted people to the general bomb threat received at the building.

“At first it was like, “We can all go outside and tan.” Now, with finals coming up, missing class is crucial because we don’t have as much time to go over materials,” Scott said.

This was the seventh bomb threat the Cathedral of Learning has received since March 14.

Pitt senior Erika Zimmerman was standing outside the Cathedral following the afternoon threat.

“I don’t know what else they can do,” Zimmerman said. “You can’t stop taking it seriously because one of these times it might be something.”

At 5 p.m., the Cathedral reopened, in time for the evening’s night classes.

After the two bomb threats on Monday, Pitt posted a message on the my.pitt homepage notifying students that the award had increased from $10,000 to $50,000 for anyone who has information about any individuals responsible for the threats.

Pennsylvania is linked to Florida through both the nature of its self-defense laws and the “reciprocity” agreements it holds with the Sunshine State.

Zimmerman’s use of a concealed carry permit after several violent incidents parallels the case of a Pennsylvania man charged with murder while legally using a concealed carry permit he obtained from Florida — after his Pa. permit was revoked.

Self-defense laws and reciprocity agreements

PA House Bill 40, signed into law June 2011, extended the “Castle Doctrine” of self-defense standards from within a person’s home or workplace to anywhere that a person has a legal right to be. Under the bill, while legally occupying a place, a person attacked with the threat of deadly force from a gun or other lethal weapon has the right to use deadly force without any duty to retreat.

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law has many similarities to Pennsylvania’s current law. In Florida, a person is justified in using deadly force when they are attacked in any place they have a right to be. The attacked must also believe that he or she has to use deadly force to “prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.”

Zimmerman has not been charged with a crime, because he told police he was defending himself against Martin.

Pennsylvania has also established 27 “reciprocity” agreements with other states, according to the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association. Under these agreements, concealed carry permits could be issued in those states to Pennsylvanians — and could be used to carry a concealed weapon in Pennsylvania legally. Pa. permits are also recognized in reciprocity states as legal.

Florida is one of those reciprocity states.

According to CeaseFirePA, a gun violence prevention organization, more than 3,000 Florida permits have been issued to Pennsylvanians.

Representative Kerry Benninghoff, who supported HB 40, said the bill passed with broad bipartisan support. Benninghoff, R-Centre, also said the bill’s reciprocity agreements are meant to nationally protect Second Amendment rights.

According to a National Rifle Association release, the bill passed with a vote of 164-37. The National Rifle Association was a major backer of the bill, according to a press release from the day the bill was signed.

No NRA representatives were available for comment.

The original bill — vetoed in 2010 by then-Governor Ed Rendell — received strong criticism from the PA District Attorneys Association.

In a letter to House Representatives, the District Attorneys Association wrote “Law abiding citizens who protect themselves from criminals will not be the beneficiaries of this bill. Criminals will. This legislation is a ready-made defense for violent criminals — a defense which their attorneys will exploit in court.”

The District Attorneys Association did not list opposing the 2011 version of HB 40 on their “2011-2012 Legislative Priorities” release in March of 2011.

Although it passed with significant ease, some politicians, public officials and advocacy groups are challenging Pennsylvania’s bill, especially in the light of Martin’s death.

Max Nacheman, the executive director of CeaseFirePA, has expressed concern over both the bill’s “stand your ground” aspect and its reciprocity agreements. Nacheman called Pennsylvania’s laws “scarily similar” to Florida’s. Though he agrees with the Castle Doctrine — the right of a citizen to defend themselves with deadly force in their own home or workplace without a duty to attempt retreat — Nacheman said the current law goes too far.

“Zimmerman is claiming Trayvon had a gun,” he said. “If this happened in Pennsylvania with its new standard, would that apply? It’s a legal doctrine that creates a new gray area.”

The “Florida Loophole”

Nacheman voiced even more concern over Pennsylvania’s reciprocity agreements, saying that Florida does not have the same standards for concealed carry permits as the Keystone State.

Called the “Florida Loophole,” this reciprocity agreement allows individuals who have been denied a permit or have had their permit revoked in Pennsylvania to receive their permit from Florida; the permit can be applied for via mail, he said.

In September of 2010, Marqus Hill shot Irving Santana 13 times, killing him after Hill witnessed Santana attempting to break into his car, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Santana was not armed. Prior to the shooting, Hill’s Pennsylvania concealed carry permit had been revoked after he was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and related charges, according to the Inquirer. The charges were eventually dropped. He was later charged and found guilty of disorderly conduct.

Thereafter, Hill obtained a Florida concealed carry permit through Pennsylvania’s reciprocity agreement, according to the Inquirer. He received the permit despite his history of violence and the revocation of his Pennsylvania concealed carry permit. Hill’s Florida permit made his concealed carry of a weapon legal in Pennsylvania.

Zimmerman similarly had experienced several brushes with the law — including the assault of a police officer, according to MSNBC — and was also able to obtain a concealed carry permit in Florida.

Centre County Sheriff Denny Nau said that under Pennsylvania law, applicants for a concealed carry permit are given a Pennsylvania Instant Criminal check that looks at nationwide criminal and mental health records. Pennsylvania law also gives permit providers something that Florida law does not allow when considering licensing a carrier: discretion.

“Even if the PIC check comes back positive, we are not mandated to issue a permit,” Nau said.

This gives the Sheriff’s Department the ability to withhold a permit for reasons outside of criminal records, such as being reckless or drinking while carrying their gun, Nau said. Florida does not allow discretion in its permit process, according to a CeaseFirePA release.

Nau said he hasn’t seen any problems with a loophole and that otherwise, Florida has more strict rules for concealed carry applicants.

Applicants in Florida must be 21 years of age; meet citizenship and residency requirements; must provide a certificate of completion of a firearms training class; and must not have a “disqualifying criminal record,” according to the Florida concealed weapon application.

The National Rifle Association’s “Institute for Legislative Action” website notes that of the nearly 2 million carry permits issued in Florida — the most of any state — only 168 (.008 percent) have been revoked due to gun crimes by permit holders.

Although he hasn’t had any issues or seen any effects of the “Florida Loophole,” Nau said he would take action if he saw someone who had been denied a permit in Pennsylvania but still carried through another state’s permit.

“I would arrest them and let them take it to the court, because we’ve already denied them,” he said.

State College Mayor Elizabeth Goreham is a member of the bipartisan group “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.” The group includes more than 625 mayors across the nation. Goreham said she “absolutely opposes” the Florida Loophole. She also said she was recently made aware of U.S. Senate legislation that would make right-to-carry reciprocity a nation-wide agreement.

The two proposed acts — “The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act” and “The Respecting States Rights and Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act” — are opposed by Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

“The loophole denies Pennsylvanians the right to regulate gun traffic and permits within Pennsylvania,” she said.

Goreham also said she generally opposes the greater prevalence of guns outside of the home.

“If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” she said.

Psychologist Alycia A. Chambers’ report, obtained by NBC News, was penned more than a decade before the former Penn State assistant football coach was charged with 52 counts of child sexual abuse involving boys he met through The Second Mile, a charity he founded for underprivileged children.

In an interview with NBC News, Chambers said there was very little doubt in her mind that Sandusky was “a male predator.” She said she believed her 1998 report was “strong enough” that police would know Sandusky was “somebody who should be watched.”

Chambers was the psychologist for the man labeled in the grand jury presentment as “Victim 6.”

According to the report obtained by NBC News, the mother of “Victim 6” called Chambers to tell her about an incident involving Sandusky and her son showering together.

After questioning the 11-year-old boy about the shower incident, Chambers gave the report to University Police Officer Ronald Schreffler on May 7, 1998, NBC News reported.

Investigators asked psychologist John Seasock to meet with “Victim 6.” Seasock concluded that “all the interactions reported by (the boy) can be typically defined as normal between a healthy adult and a young adolescent male,” according to the report obtained by NBC News.

Sandusky continued to call and visit the apartment of “Victim 6.” Police monitored two confrontations between Sandusky and the boy’s mother, NBC News reported.

The mother asked Sandusky if his private parts touched her son when Sandusky hugged him. Sandusky replied, “I don’t think so. …Maybe.” Sandusky told the mother that he has done the same with other boys, according to the report obtained by NBC News.

Schreffler and Jerry Lauro, who worked in the state Department of Public Welfare, interviewed Sandusky as part of their investigation, NBC News reported.

They could not conclude if “a sexual assault occurred,” so the case was dismissed.

Sandusky has maintained his innocence through his attorney. Joe Amendola told NBC News that during Sandusky’s trial he will call other psychologists to counter the conclusions reached by Chambers.

Amendola released a statement today reacting to the releasing of the information in the report, saying “we are troubled.” Amendola said the Office of the Attorney General has only provided him with parts of the 1998 police reports, not including the reports from Chambers and Seasock. He said he is now left to speculate “on what other critical information the Attorney General has failed to provide to the defense team.”

Penn State University Police deferred all comment to the Office of University Relations. Penn State Spokeswoman Lisa Powers wrote in an email that she could not comment on issues related to Sandusky investigations, past or present. The university is fully cooperating with the United States Attorney General, the Pennsylvania Attorney General and Judge Louis Freeh, who is conducting an independent investigation, she wrote.

Allison Zak, sophomore in Languages, Literatures and Cultures, from Schaumburg, was found at about 9:30 p.m., and John “Cody” Stephens, freshman in Computer Science, from Wilmette, was found shortly after midnight.

ISU Police and the McLean County Coroner’s office are investigating both cases. University counselors were present at the scene throughout the night.

Bowman said neither incident involved “foul play or criminal activity of any kind.” He applauded students for their appropriate response to the events.

“Sometimes, the best we can do is to share our grief and offer comfort to each other,” he said. “…My review of our social media pages indicates that students supported each other, shared their thoughts and quickly informed family members of the incidents.”

Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman who committed the morning shootings, killed another 30 people later that afternoon, but Virginia Tech maintains its officials did not act improperly.

“The heinous crimes committed by Seung-Hui Cho were an unprecedented act of violence that no one could have foreseen,” Virginia Tech spokesperson Mark Owczarski said in a statement yesterday. “The extended Virginia Tech family, particularly those on campus that horrible day, will always remember and honor those we lost.”

Peterson and Prydes’ families alleged Virginia Tech did not properly warn the university community about the initial shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a campus dormitory. The suit claimed such an alert could have saved the lives of their children and others.

The jury awarded $4 million to each of the families, but damages paid to the families must be capped at $100,000 according to the Virginia Tort Claims Act.

The U.S. Department of Education fined Virginia Tech $55,000 in 2010 for failing to respond appropriately to the shootings and provide adequate warnings to students.

“Under the Clery Act, institutions must issue timely warning to the campus community to inform affected persons of crimes considered to be a threat to students and employees,” according to a Dec. 2010 report issued by the Department of Education. “Virginia Tech failed to comply with the requirements relating to a timely warning.”

Virginia Tech has maintained university officials responded correctly when they waited to issue a warning to the entire campus community after the morning shootings. Those shootings were followed by the more deadly shootings at Norris Hall hours later.

The Department of Education report said Virginia Tech had not issued its warnings quickly enough or followed its own policies when issuing the warnings.

“First, the warnings that were issued by the university were not prepared or disseminated in a manner to give clear and timely notice of the threat to the health and safety of campus community members,” the report said. “Second, Virginia Tech did not follow its own policy for the issuance of timely warnings as published in its annual campus security reports.”

Virginia Tech’s Continuing Education School, Government Relations Office and Veterinary School were locked down by 9:15 a.m., according to the Department of Education report.

“If the university had provided an appropriate timely warning after the first shootings at [West Ambler Johnson dorm], the other members of the campus community may have had enough time to take similar actions to protect themselves,” the report said.

Despite the decision yesterday, Virginia Tech officials maintain they acted promptly and efficiently to minimize the damage done on a day on which 33 people died and 17 were wounded.

“We are disappointed with today’s decision and stand by our long-held position that the administration and law enforcement at Virginia Tech did their absolute best with the information available on April 16, 2007,” Owczarski said. “We do not believe that evidence presented at trial relative to the murders in West Ambler Johnston created an increased danger to the campus that day.”

Lauren Spierer is disappearing again.

Nine months ago, the then-20-year-old sophomore vanished in the middle of a summer night. Posters showing Lauren’s smiling face began to haunt Bloomington, appearing on billboards, utility poles, campus kiosks and storefront windows. She was gone,
but everywhere.

This spring, as the case lingers with no answer in sight, the posters are coming down. The few that remain are starting to tear and fade, and the case is falling out of the headlines.

Some Bloomington residents have sent stinging letters to the Spierer family, complaining that the posters are littering their town. Students are sympathetic, but in quiet conversation, some admit they’ve heard enough and are ready to move on.

Lauren’s parents and friends now describe her in both the past and present tense. Without some resolution, they aren’t sure how to speak of her.

Even as she fades from the public’s eyes for a second time, most people still have no concept of Lauren beyond the face on the poster. They don’t know the young woman who loved miniature Buddhas and Hello Kitty. The one who played lacrosse until the day she discovered she had a heart condition. Who even on the night she went missing, wore a fragile gold bracelet, a gift from her father, adorned with an evil eye for protection.

***

The story of Lauren’s life as we know it is stuck at 4:30 a.m. June 3, 2011.

She was supposed to go back home to Scarsdale, N.Y., to intern with Anthropologie later in the summer. She would have been alongside her friends as she started her junior year at IU.

She wanted to study abroad with her best friend this spring. They were thinking about Italy, but hadn’t decided yet. She would have celebrated her 21st birthday Jan. 17.

Instead, her name has become synonymous with her disappearance, her face synonymous with the unknown.

A grainy still, taken by security cameras, shows her frozen in time, forever leaving her fifth-floor apartment for a night out. Her white top is flowing, her black leggings tight. Her hair is partially pulled back. She is smiling.

She left Smallwood Plaza to hang out with people she had met earlier in the week at the Indianapolis 500.

At 1:46 a.m., Lauren showed a fake I.D. to the bouncer at Kilroy’s Sports Bar and joined her friends inside. She took off her shoes to walk in the sand, and by the time she left the bar at 2:27 a.m., she’d lost her cell phone.

Video footage shows Lauren entering the lobby of Smallwood with Corey Rossman, a friend of one of her roommates. Rossman got into a fight with a young man, who the police have not identified publicly, in the lobby of the apartment complex. Rossman has told police he can’t remember anything that happened after that point.

Lauren and Rossman left Smallwood. Security cameras show the two walking back to his apartment at 11th and Morton streets. Her keys and wallet were lost somewhere along the way.

Rossman’s roommate told police he put him to bed while Lauren went down the hall to her friend Jay Rosenbaum’s apartment.

Rosenbaum watched her leave at 4:30 a.m., walk to the corner of 11th Street and College Avenue and turn right. But Lauren never made it back to Smallwood, three blocks away.

The police conducted searches and daily press conferences. Family, friends and complete strangers combed the buildings, fields and forests around Bloomington. Nothing.

Her parents packed Lauren’s life at IU into 19 boxes, which are now stacked in the Spierers’ home.

***

Lauren would not have liked all the attention.

People heard that she went out drinking, so she was labeled a partier. People heard that she was Jewish and from New York, so she was labeled as rich. People saw she was blonde, so she was stereotyped as a ditz who lost her cell phone and keys.

But the people slapping labels on Lauren didn’t know her beyond the newspaper articles or her face on the poster. Those who knew her look at her poster and see the Lauren they were friends with.

The Lauren they knew loved old people, especially when she saw them in love. She liked to imitate accents, everything from a rabbi’s accent to a Brit’s.

Her petite size at 4-feet-11-inches and 90 pounds didn’t reflect her love for food. She loved Domino’s pizza with extra ranch sauce, Baked! cookies and Butch’s Grillacatessen & Eatzeria.

She was notoriously messy and did everything at the last minute. Her room was always covered in clothes because she often changed her mind about what she wanted to wear.

As a child, she always wanted a dog, but was never allowed to get one. Her first pets were sea monkeys, then a fish named Dori.

Lauren’s baby pictures show her smiling on the beach, but always in someone’s arms or sitting on a towel. Lauren used to hate the sand, her parents said.

She didn’t like heat or sweating, but her constant energy transferred well into athletics. Her father, Robert, called her a “tiger” as a soccer sweeper. But her sport of choice was lacrosse. She was a fast runner and was invited to play varsity at a young age, her mother Charlene said in a recent interview.

“She was a teeny little thing,” Charlene said. “But she was tough as nails.”

In ninth grade, Lauren was diagnosed with long QT syndrome, a heart condition that can cause fainting and potentially fatal heart arrhythmias.

The next day, she dropped lacrosse.

“That was it. Done,” Robert said. “She was really crushed.”

Her life changed at that point, Charlene said. Lauren had always been fashion- and art-oriented, so she enrolled in an Advanced Placement art class at her high school.

On Saturdays during her senior year, she would take a train to the city to take classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

“She had to kind of reinvent herself because she went from sort of being a jock to being really interested in fashion,” Charlene said. “She would go to Goodwill and buy a skirt for 50 cents and wear it to a black-tie affair. She just then took it to the next step and decided to make a career out of it.”

Lauren and her childhood friend Becca Lefkowitz always loved to get manicures and go shopping. Lauren knew every color of OPI and essie nail polish. She preferred to paint her nails dark colors: black, a dark purple or her favorite color, blue. Once in a while, she would paint them pink, Lefkowitz said, but Lauren always regretted it and took it off by the next day.

At one of their favorite Italian restaurants, Gennaro’s Pizza & Pasta, they would eat the same four things: salad, garlic knots, an order of penne vodka pasta and a slice of pizza to share.

After graduating high school, Lefkowitz went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison while Lauren went to IU, seven hours away. Despite the distance, the two constantly talked throughout every day. Lefkowitz would Skype while Lauren and her boyfriend were studying in the library. They kept it on mute but could look up at each other and wave.

When Lefkowitz was upset about a bad break-up in Wisconsin, Lauren sent her a pack of Hello Kitty tissues with a note that said, “No crying over boys, only crying over missing me.”

Lauren and her boyfriend drove to Madison to surprise Lefkowitz for Halloween their freshman year. It had been their favorite holiday since middle school, when they dressed up as construction workers together. The plan for this past Halloween was to be Thing One and Thing Two from Dr. Seuss.

***

Lauren started going to Camp Towanda in Pennsylvania when she was age 8 and worked her way up to being a “camper captain” and then a camp counselor in 2009.

“She was very ‘ra-ra’ about the camp spirit,” Robert said. “I could see her going ‘woo’ with her arms up in the air.”

“She used to say, ‘I live nine months for three,’” Charlene added.

Blair Wallach met Lauren when they were 9 years old and shared a bunk together. When they realized they were both coming to IU, they decided to room together in McNutt Residence Center.

They went shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond together with their moms and bought matching bedspreads and blankets.

“It was all matchy-matchy,” Wallach said. “And then everything else was hippies and Hello Kitty.”

Lauren put a sign that said “Hippies use backdoor: no exceptions” above her bed.
She decorated the room with posters of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Her dad takes the credit for her music taste.

“It was always best when I had her trapped in the car because I could control it and she couldn’t get out, so I’d play a lot of the groups from ’60s,” Robert said. “I remember her listening to Crosby, Stills & Nash one night and told her to listen to the harmony. And when the song ended, she just said it was unbelievable to listen to the harmony.”

Her eclectic music tastes reflected her clothing style, too.

Her clothes were funky, vintage and colorful. Her dad would laugh when he saw her wearing boots with fringe like Davy Crockett.

Wallach said that, as apparel merchandising majors, they both love fashion.

When they were bored, they’d grab a coffee or go shopping in Urban Outfitters, where Lauren would just grab stuff off the rack without trying it on.

She decorated her bedroom in Smallwood with a large Urban Outfitters tapestry of Ganesha, the Hindu deity who symbolizes wisdom and success. She loved Buddha sculptures and had them throughout her room. It was girly but edgy, Wallach said. Lauren scattered small bowls of chocolates and Mini M&M’s throughout the apartment.

Wallach and Lauren’s favorite show was “Sex and the City.” They both owned all of the seasons and would always quote their favorite episode “The Good Fight” from season four. She also stole her dad’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” DVDs to take back to Bloomington after he introduced the show to her.

In pictures, Lauren liked to make a kissy face and a peace sign. “Spierer face,” Wallach called it.

***

Since Lauren stepped out into that night in June, summer became fall, which turned into winter, and it’s soon to be spring. She missed her 21st birthday and the revival of IU basketball. She missed Hanukkah and her older sister Rebecca’s engagement.
The daily press conferences have been downgraded to the occasional press release addressing rumors.

In February, IU removed the “Find Lauren” button from the front page of its website. According to the University’s press release, it’s scheduled to rotate on the front page during the first week of every month.

But her parents haven’t stopped searching, and they vow that they never will. They still come to Bloomington and search in secret on their own.

People who never knew her create events to hang up new posters or commemorate the months since her disappearance. Some light candles every night in prayer to find her or make bracelets to send to the family. One woman manages a Twitter account with 28,000 followers to provide updates with news about Lauren.

Last week, the family increased the reward money from $100,000 to $250,000 for any information that leads to their daughter being found.

“This is our child,” Charlene said. “We are not just going to go home and wait. We have to be proactive. We adore her. She is our life, with Rebecca, and we are not going to accept this.”

They talk about what’s missing, and they talk about missing Lauren.

Charlene said she sometimes pictures Lauren sitting in their living room, drinking coffee in her favorite red hoodie. Her daughter, who used to hate sand, who had a gift for fashion, who found happiness in making other people smile.

“As we look at Lauren’s posters, to us, that’s an abstract,” Charlene said. “It’s not who she is. She’s not a poster. She’s a person.”

Tragedy struck at CHS Monday morning when a shooting left three students dead and two other students injured. The alleged shooter, 17-year-old Thomas Lane, opened fire in the school cafeteria before a teacher chased him out of the school.

Daniel Parmertor, 16, died several hours after the shooting, according to multiple reports. Russell King Jr., 17, died Monday night and Demetrius Hewlin, 16, died Tuesday morning. The two injured students remain hospitalized, according to reports.

It is not only high schools that fall victim to these unfathomable events, but colleges and even elementary schools.

CHS is the second school in less than one week that has had a known issue with gun violence. An elementary school in Bremerton, Wash., also reported a shooting Feb. 22.

Although the situations behind the two shootings are different, there is still a question of why.

The shooting at Bremerton was reportedly an accident, but the 9-year-old boy accused of shooting a fellow classmate said he had a gun because he felt he needed protection, according to multiple reports.

But again, the question of why arises.

Why would a 9-year-old think he needed such severe protection? Did he think he needed it from strangers or bullies?

There are constant reports of bullying in all forms, from social media to the classic “Give me your lunch money” command, but the truth is, people don’t realize how these little quips or mean gestures can affect the way someone behaves, not only in the present but in the future.

It’s heartbreaking to think of the events that have transpired in the past few days, let alone the past few years.

As a Cleveland-area native, it terrifies me to think how close these shootings are getting to home. I did not go to CHS, but I am familiar with the area.

This style of shootings again make me ask why.

Why does one feel this is the only way to get through life?

I wonder what does one have to go through to ever reach that point, but in a way, I am glad that I do not know.

I feel bad for the victims and the families involved, but also that the accused gunman reached this point in his life.

Was this a case of mistreated childhood or bullying?

Bullying is something that can range in severity. There have almost always been schoolyard bullies and teasings, but they are growing into something that throws our whole society into jeopardy.

There have been multiple stories in the media of students who have dealt with the bullying in different ways, but most of the stories we see end in death in some way, either the public displays we have seen in recent days or more private actions, such as self-inflicted cuttings or suicides.

We need to realize how our actions impact those around us. This, for me, is made even more obvious because the proximity of my hometown to where the shooting occurred, but this should matter to every human being.

We need to raise people up and encourage others to stand up for what they believe in. We shouldn’t chastise someone for his or her differences. We need to treat people with love and respect.

This could have been something brought on by severe loneliness. We need to reach out to people and look out for those who might be in some kind of trouble. We as a culture need to stand up and do our part for each other. If you see someone having a bad day just take a moment and say, “Hi,” talk to the person, even if it is a complete stranger. We don’t know how our small actions can change someone else’s life.

All of these schools have been impacted by shootings in some shape or form, and were of different magnitudes, fatalities and motives. But all of them centered around violence and issues that adolescents might face every day.

The most recent being the shooting at Chardon High School near Cleveland, Ohio, Monday morning. The shooting left three students dead and two injured, but in stable condition. The alleged gunman, Thomas Lane, 17, began shooting in the cafeteria and was later chased out of the school. He later turned himself in and is in custody, according to multiple reports.

Multiple news reports suggest Lane was bullied and that could have been one of several possible motives.

Dr. Deanna Wilkinson, an associate professor in the Ohio State U. Department of Human Development and Family Science, highlighted that reports of bullying being at the root of the shooting are not substantiated.

“It looks more like it’s a mental health, depression issue more so than bullying being a major part of it,” Wilkinson said.

Because bullying in schools has received more media attention recently, it might be easy to jump to the issue while overlooking other important aspects, said Mollie Blackburn, an associate professor in the OSU College of Education and Human Ecology.

“Everyone is anti-bullying,” said Blackburn, who has taught anti-bullying classes in Columbus City schools. “I worry that when people jump to the cause of bullying that they jump past a lot of the other things that are part of the dynamic.”

Blackburn said it’s important to understand bullying is not just between a bully and a victim.

“It’s a bullying dynamic, and it sounds like it’s a situation as well where somebody who has been bullied also bullies other people,” Blackburn said.

Wilkinson said she heard Lane wrote a Facebook post prior to the shooting that could have been a warning sign, but said teens will often post things and not always mean it.

“Social media plays a huge part in the roles of adolescents,” Wilkinson said. “But what we can do with that, is use that information to prevent stuff … We certainly need to use our resources to work on the other end of dealing with the underlying issues that are causing someone to feel so emotionally distraught to do something like this.”

Monitoring social media accounts in high schools could be difficult, Wilkinson said, but more action needs to be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.

“I think we could build a system that would protect us 100 percent from things like this happening again,” Wilkinson said. “I think that we can certainly do a better job of providing the support, paying attention to the seriousness of depression and looking into warning signs around those issues.”

Part of Wilkinson’s research deals with what people think when they are armed and angry. Any social media posts Lane might or might not have written would indicate premeditation, but Wilkinson said this is rarely the case in such a situation.

“What I’ve found is that there is very little premeditation,” Wilkinson said. “What is more common is for the violence to sort of emerge out of the situation. The premeditation may be that they carry the gun around and they’re armed, and they put themselves in these situations but whether or not they actually use the gun in a conflict situation has a whole lot more to do with who else is there, what’s the nature of the grievance, are they drunk or high, there’s all these other factors that come into play.”

According to multiple reports on Tuesday, Lane did not know the victims and chose them at random. In court Tuesday, Lane admitted to firing 10 shots at CHS and will be held until charged; prosecutors have until March 1 to charge him, according to multiple reports.

Considering Lane turned himself in after the shooting, Wilkinson said it’s difficult to rationalize such a situation.

“Whether you’re a victim or a perpetrator of crime, your brain and your body gives off chemicals as you’re going through that moment that you can’t actually predict what you’re going to do in that situation,” Wilkinson said.

While the shooting has received international attention, Wilkinson said she does not believe the media surrounding it will spark copy-cat events.

“If you’re suffering from mental illness, and then all of a sudden your famous for a minute and you’re a household name … for some people who really are troubled, that’s an attractive, appealing thing,” Wilkinson said. “But I think that the fact they are suffering so much, it’s not worth it.”

Kevin Jackson, a third-year in strategic communication, said he wishes more could be done to prevent shootings.

“My first reaction was that it’s a shame that after all the past school shootings, someone hasn’t figured out a way to be more aware of kids that may be struggling emotionally,” Jackson said.

The key to prevention is paying more attention, Wilkinson said.

“I think we can do a better job of paying attention to depression, paying attention to just how difficult it can be to be an adolescent when your parents don’t have their lives together,” Wilkinson said.

The issue of concealed carry laws was called into question, but Wilkinson said she doesn’t think different gun laws would have prevented the incident.

“I think that whatever he had in his mind, he was already moving down that,” Wilkinson said. “I don’t think the implication of this is we need more concealed carry. I think that we need more services for mental health issues.”

One of the victims of the shooting, 16-year-old Daniel Parmertor, died Monday morning. Russell King Jr., 17, was pronounced brain dead Monday and later died. Demetrius Hewlin, 16, was the third student victim to die from the shooting, according to MetroHealth Medical Center.

Bianca Mandato, 18, was at school during the shooting and while she did not witness the incident, she said she is good friends with one of the victims who is still in the hospital.

“He (the victim) was just somebody who you never thought that this would happen to,” Mandato said. “It’s heartbreaking … it came out of nowhere ya know, out of the blue. It’s almost like a nightmare I keep trying to wake up from but I can’t.”

Ritika Shah contributed to this story.

A shooting at Chardon High School left two students dead, two injured but in stable condition, and one in critical condition, at the time of print Monday night. The alleged gunman, 17-year-old Thomas Lane, began shooting in the cafeteria and was later chased out of the school by a teacher. He later turned himself in and is in custody of the Geauga County Safety Center, according to multiple reports.

In a town where neighbors are comfortable not locking their doors, CHS graduate Gordon Moser said he doesn’t want this event to characterize his hometown.

“The character of Chardon is not what everybody has seen today,” said Moser, an Ohio State U. junior. “It’s what the response has been and how everyone has gathered together.”

Moser was involved in a senior mentoring program with some of the victims at CHS, though he said he did not personally know anyone involved in the shooting. A vigil was held Monday evening on the Oval, and a candlelight vigil was held at the high school Monday evening, according to the mother of a student. CHS will be closed Tuesday.

“That’s the character of Chardon that I want everybody to see, not what we saw today from T.J. Lane,” Moser said.

Rebecca Moser, 17, was at school this morning when the shooting happened but did not know anyone involved. Rebecca Moser said it was a normal day, and it took a few minutes after the school went under lockdown to realize it wasn’t a drill and something serious was going on.

“We had our phones, so we were getting texts (about what was going on),” Rebecca Moser said. “We heard people in the hallways … my friends from other schools were saying we were on the news.”

Also a CHS graduate, Jesse Hall, an Ohio State U. junior, said he knows one of the students in critical condition.

“(The victim) seemed like a pretty quiet kid,” Hall said. “I don’t know if it’s an issue of bullying or something … he seemed like a nice kid and everybody seemed to like him a lot, a big sweetheart kind of kid.”

Despite being away from his hometown during this hard time, Hall said he’s had a crazy day dealing with the situation from Columbus.

“It’s just not the kind of thing that happens (in Chardon),” Hall said. “It’s really surreal to think about all of this … It’s been hard to concentrate on anything today. You see Columbine and stuff on the news and you never think that could happen to your school.”

Gov. John Kasich offered his condolences and prayers to those affected in Chardon prior to an event on campus Monday. He also ordered flags in Geauga County and the Statehouse to be flown at half-staff Tuesday.

“I urge all Ohioans to join me in lifting up this family, the other wounded students and their families and the entire Chardon community at this difficult time,” Kasich said in a press release.

Hall said Lane posted on Twitter the day before the shooting saying he was bringing a gun to school. Hall also said that from his knowledge, Lane has had “a pretty tough life.”

“I read a piece of writing he posted on Facebook a couple months back that was kind of morbid,” Hall said.

Buckeyes for Concealed Carry on Campus sent out a release Monday evening sharing its condolences for Chardon, and advocating for concealed carry laws on campus.

Hall said community is very important to Chardon and he wishes he could be there with those affected by the tragedy.

“(Chardon) is such a big community … it’s upper-middle class, it’s hard working,” Hall said. “That’s why it’s so shocking … I just want to go home and see my parents and family and the people who were there. They’re never going to be able to get those images out of their heads.”

Rebecca Moser attended the vigil Monday and said while it was comforting, the town remains somber.

“It was such a beautiful day outside and it was just overcast in Chardon today, all day,” Rebecca Moser said.

Roupas, a Penn State U. sophomore, is studying abroad in Greece — an idyllic Mediterranean nation, home of olive trees, the Acropolis and, recently, violent clashes between Greek citizens and their government over the nations’ massive debt.

According to the Greek Tourism Organization’s website, Greece is a popular tourist destination because it is a “crossroads of colors and cultures,” and it has an “affluent historical past.”

But popular tourist areas have been sites of violence in recent years.

In January 2010, according to a State Department warning, a bomb exploded near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square, “a site popular with tourists.”

The European Union nations of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are all suffering debt issues, Terrance Guay, an associate professor of international business, said. Greece is in danger of defaulting on its loans, which the Greek government borrowed to cover budget deficits, Guay said.

The problem stems from excessive social programs, early retirement age, large pensions and a failure to collect taxes, he said.

And the EU will only bail out Greece if it gets its government finances in order first.

“That means raising taxes, laying off government workers and cutting pensions and social programs,” Guay said.

This threat of cuts has led to protests — some shockingly violent — in history-rich Athens.

The U.S. State Department has not issued an official travel warning for the Mediterranean nation, but does provide up-to-date U.S. embassy notices, including emergency warnings of the violent demonstrations.

The State Department’s web page on Greece warns that recent austerity measures have led to strikes and demonstrations in the center of Athens.

“We remind American citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence,” the warning states.

Barbara Rowe, Executive Director of Penn State’s Education Abroad, said students are free to study abroad in Greece.

University policy prohibits students and staff from studying or researching through Penn State programs in countries with U.S. Department of State travel warnings, though students and faculty have the ability to petition for an exception.

Rowe said no students have been affected by violence, and students studying in Greece, or considering traveling there, are advised to stay clear of the areas where demonstrations occur.

Roupas said except for her mountaintop view of violence at the Greek Parliament, she has seen little protesting and no violence.

About 50 people protest at Parliament every day, holding signs and blasting music, she said. Riot police are numerous, but the neighborhood where she resides has been totally quiet, Roupas said.

Penn State hasn’t provided Roupas with any special rules, but her professor looks out for her and other students, she said.

According to a U.S. government warning, on February 12 “thousands of protesters gathered nearby [in central Athens], with some throwing objects including Molotov cocktails, and authorities responding with tear gas. The situation is unpredictable, and we want to remind U.S. citizens that that there exists the continued potential for violence during the demonstrations outside Parliament.”

The U.S. Department of State also warns of “increasingly active” domestic terrorist groups within Greece.

Groups have bombed foreign embassies in Athens with moderate frequency in the past several years, and, according to the State Department, domestic group attacks have also involved “Molotov cocktails (gasoline bombs), small arms and rifle fire, targeted assassinations, and improvised explosive devices, the largest being a 100-kilo ammonium nitrate car bomb detonated at the Athens Stock Exchange in September 2009.”

The students have been separated from campus. Officials at a 9:30 press conference said that more arrests are likely to be made.

“There’s no doubt all arrested today are drug dealers,” said TCU Police Chief Steven McGee. “These students engaged in hand-to-hand delivery with undercover officers.”

Captain Ken Dean reported in the press conference that two female and 15 males were of the arrested, three of which were on-campus residents, 14 off-campus.

McGee said the drugs involved included: marijuana, ecstasy pills, and a powdered form of ecstasy commonly called “molly”, prescription drugs such as Xanax, hydrocodone and Oxycontin.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent of the kids here do the right thing, and we want to make sure that the kids that aren’t are not at TCU,” Chancellor Victor Boschini said at the press conference.

TCU Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Chris Del Conte said that criminal conduct would not be tolerated in the athletics program.

“Our student-athletes are a microcosm of society and unfortunately that means some of our players reflect a culture that glorifies drugs and drug use. That mindset is not reflected by TCU nor will it be allowed within athletics,” Del Conte said in a statement released to media.

Head football coach Gary Patterson said he and his staff would not tolerate drug use on his team.

“Our program is respected nationally for its strong ethics and for that reason the players arrested today were separated from TCU by the University. I believe strongly that young people’s lives are more important than wins or losses,” Patterson said.

The chancellor said in a separate interview that police told him of the investigation about eight days ago:  “They said they were in the process of an investigation that might result in arrests but of course they didn’t give me or anyone else any specific details because they didn’t want to lose the element of surprise.”

He said he has notified the chairman of the board of trustees. As of now, the board of trustees will not hold a special meeting concerning the drug bust but will discuss it at their upcoming meeting in April, he said. He added that he expects to have all of the information concerning the drug bust by about March 30.

“We don’t want these students on our campus and if anyone is dealing drugs or breaking the law, get rid of them,” Boschini said. “Any students dealing and working in these illegal things have to go somewhere else because it’s not going to be here.”

Last year 71 students were taken through the  for drug violations, Boschini said.

Former Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Don Mills said there were drugs on campus during his term of the past 17 years but not to this extent.

“There has been a noticeable increase in the use of a wide variety of drugs over the last three or four years, including prescription drugs as well as street drugs,” Mills said.

He said the university has done two things: first is to have programming about drugs and the second is when TCU became aware of it either intervene in a counseling or a disciplinary way.

The university’s policy has a zero tolerance policy about his behavior Boschini and Mills said.

The response from parents, alumni, students, and trustees has all been positive, Boschini said.

“I’ve gotten roughly 20 percent from parents, 20 percent from alumni, 60 percent from students with trustees being included in parents and alumnus because most of them are parents or alumnus,” Boschini said.

Fort Worth Police released names of those arrested:

Current Students:
1. Bud Pollard Dillard
2. Cynthia (Cindy) Jaqueline Zambrano
3. David Wayne (DJ) Yendrey *
4. Devin Jay Johnson *
5. Earl Patrick Burke
6. Hunter Wallace McLaughlin
7. Jonathan Blake Jones
8. Katherine Ann Peitre
9. Matthew Iarossi Davis
10. Michael Gragg King
11. Peter Signavong
12. Richard Clay Putney
13. Scott (Scooter) Lee Anderson
14. Tanner Wilson Brock*
15. Taylor Davis Cowdin
16. Tyler (Ty) Andrew Horn*
17. William (Will) Davis Jennings

Two former students:
18. Austin Carpenter
19. Eduardo (Eddie) J. Hernandez

*Football Player
The email from Boschini sent cmapus-wide at 8:05 a.m.:

Dear Campus Community,

Early today the Fort Worth Police Department and TCU Campus Police concluded an investigation into drug selling on and around campus that unfortunately led to the arrest of many current TCU students.

While this news is certainly shocking and disappointing, it is important to remember that TCU has clear expectations for its students: that they behave in an ethical manner, abide by campus policies and adhere to state and federal law. These students are charged with acting in a manner that is incompatible with TCU values and against the law.  That is simply unacceptable and such reported behavior is not tolerated at this University.

We have a responsibility to ensure that our campus environment is free of such behavior. Today’s actions highlight that responsibility. The students involved were immediately separated from TCU and criminally trespassed from campus. Further, according to University policy, students arrested and found in violation of distributing drugs are subject to immediate expulsion from TCU.

TCU has never before experienced a magnitude of student arrests such as this. In fact, Campus Police records show only five student arrests related to drug law violations in recent years. I have asked our vice chancellor for student affairs, Dr. Kathy Cavins-Tull, to examine whether any new programs or procedures need to be implemented to curtail this type of behavior in the future. The Fort Worth Police Department also has offered to help in these efforts.

Today’s events have forever changed the lives of the involved students, and we hope they will find a healthy way to move forward. Also, the next couple of weeks will be tough for the TCU family. There is no doubt that it will hurt to see our name associated with this type of behavior. But we must not allow this moment to define us. We must remember that we are overwhelmingly a community of dedicated students, faculty and staff and focused on changing the world through our collective work and commitment to leadership.

Sincerely,
Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr.

You may think that sounds like a long time ago – and it was. But, sadly, dating violence remains a very real problem in our country – especially on college campuses.

Today, while in college, nearly one in five women will be a victim of sexual assault and one in ten teens will be hurt on purpose by someone they are dating. These aren’t just statistics, these are people you know:  your roommates, your friends, your sisters, your classmates. This is a problem we all have to face.

My dad used to say that there’s no worse sin than the abuse of power. Whether it was raising a hand to someone weaker, or using any advantage to push people around, he taught me that if you saw abuse, you had an obligation to attempt to stop it. It’s a lesson to remember every day, but especially this February, during Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month.

Awareness is the first step to pushing back against a problem this big. When I held Senate hearings on violence against women more than two decades ago, domestic abuse in American society was rarely spoken about in public. I’ll never forget the stories of abuse I heard in over a thousand hours of hearings. The brutality of family members, acquaintances, and strangers against the women in their lives was absolutely devastating.

It was those hearings that led to the Violence Against Women Act, and since then annual incidents of domestic violence have dropped by more than 50%. But for women in college and younger today, the risk is still much too high.

That’s why I joined with Education Secretary Arne Duncan last April to announce historic new guidelines for colleges and universities about their responsibilities under Title IX to prevent sexual assault.  Under the federal civil rights law, schools have an obligation not only to respond appropriately when an assault occurs, but also to create a climate on campus that makes such violence unacceptable.

I also started an initiative called 1is2many to help reduce dating violence and sexual assault among teens and young adults. We harnessed the power of technology to get our message out, launching a national contest to develop “Apps Against Abuse.” The two winning apps – which will be available later this spring – will let you get in touch with your friends quickly and safely so you can call for help if you need it and stop violence in its tracks.  We’ve also made sure the National Dating Abuse Helpline can be reached by text, online, or phone 24/7.

Last month, the FBI changed the way the federal government defines rape. The narrow, outdated definition – unchanged since 1929 – said the assault had to be forcible and against a woman’s will to be classified as rape. It’s just not true, and it’s a point that I make on college campuses all across the country. Rape is rape and no means no. No means no whether drunk or sober. No means no whether in the dorm room or on the street. There is never an excuse. Young women and men alike need to understand this. Under the new definition, rape occurs when there is no consent, and it also includes sexual assault against boys and young men in national law enforcement reporting.

These are important changes, but ending dating violence and sexual assault isn’t just a matter of laws and legislation.  It’s about education. It’s about attitudes. It’s about your participation.  I need your help to address this issue in your dorms and on your campuses.  Studies show that men’s ideas about what other men think is one of the strongest determinants of how they act. So guys, you need to speak out.

The ultimate measure of a civilized society is how its laws and culture treat the abuse of women. Attitudes can change.  Violence can end.  But it can’t happen without universal understanding that dating violence and sexual assault will never be tolerated anywhere, at any time, for any reason.  Period.  That’s all of our responsibility.

Joe Biden is the Vice President of the United States

The students have been separated from campus and it was announced at the conference that more arrests are likely to be made.

The names of students have not been released, but all students have been separated from the campus, said Kathy Cavins-Tull, vice chancellor of student affairs.

“There’s no doubt all arrested today are drug dealers,” said TCU Police Chief Steven McGee. “These students engaged in hand-to-hand delivery with undercover officers.”

Captain Ken Dean reported in the press conference that two female and 15 males were of the arrested, three of which were on-campus residents, 14 off-campus.

The drugs involved: marijuana, ecstasy pills, and a powdered form of ecstasy commonly called “molly”, prescription drugs such as Xanax, hydrocodone and Oxycontin, said McGee.

“99.9 percent of the kids here do the right thing, and we want to make sure that the kids that aren’t are not at TCU,” Chancellor Victor Boschini said at the press conference.

The email from Boschini from 8:05 a.m.:

Dear Campus Community,

Early today the Fort Worth Police Department and TCU Campus Police concluded an investigation into drug selling on and around campus that unfortunately led to the arrest of many current TCU students.

While this news is certainly shocking and disappointing, it is important to remember that TCU has clear expectations for its students: that they behave in an ethical manner, abide by campus policies and adhere to state and federal law. These students are charged with acting in a manner that is incompatible with TCU values and against the law.  That is simply unacceptable and such reported behavior is not tolerated at this University.

We have a responsibility to ensure that our campus environment is free of such behavior. Today’s actions highlight that responsibility. The students involved were immediately separated from TCU and criminally trespassed from campus. Further, according to University policy, students arrested and found in violation of distributing drugs are subject to immediate expulsion from TCU.

TCU has never before experienced a magnitude of student arrests such as this. In fact, Campus Police records show only five student arrests related to drug law violations in recent years. I have asked our vice chancellor for student affairs, Dr. Kathy Cavins-Tull, to examine whether any new programs or procedures need to be implemented to curtail this type of behavior in the future. The Fort Worth Police Department also has offered to help in these efforts.

Today’s events have forever changed the lives of the involved students, and we hope they will find a healthy way to move forward. Also, the next couple of weeks will be tough for the TCU family. There is no doubt that it will hurt to see our name associated with this type of behavior. But we must not allow this moment to define us. We must remember that we are overwhelmingly a community of dedicated students, faculty and staff and focused on changing the world through our collective work and commitment to leadership.

Sincerely,
Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr.

Aston said the police use social media frequently, mostly to find people in burglary and theft cases.

“Our law enforcement officers have to keep up with what the public is doing,” she said. “As they change, we have to change with them. As technology advances we have to advance.”

But she said the police have also recently used social media to make arrests in connection with the Nov. 9 riot downtown following the Board of Trustees’ decision to remove former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier. In that case, Aston said police used pictures and videos of the riots to charge people.

Aston said police are now trained in social media because of how frequently it is used. She said sometimes police officers have to go a step beyond just finding posts; they must then ask the social media sites to preserve the data.

PSU Police Chief Tyrone Parham said a group that was created for people who rushed the field after a football game against Ohio State was one example of how Facebook posts led to arrests.

Police used this group to find names of people who entered the field, which led them too make arrests, Parham said.

He also said University Police typically use Facebook sites to match a name to a picture.

Police also use social media to catch people who are involved in drug-related crimes, Aston said.

She said it is not uncommon for people to post about their drug use or sales.

“Surprisingly, they put some really obvious statements on their social media sites about criminal activity,” Aston said.

But social media can also get people into other kinds of trouble — as experts are warning people to think twice before tweeting or posting on Facebook about their vacations, if they want to return to find all of their belongings where they left them.

At Penn State, Parham said this has not been a huge problem on campus.

Penn State Professor S. Shyam Sundar, who is listed as an expert in social media and its effects, said that there are ways to connect a person’s information online.

For example, Sundar said there are websites that can connect someone’s tweets, Facebook posts and Foursquare check-ins to figure out someone’s exact location and to learn when someone’s residence is unoccupied. Still, Sundar said these risks haven’t prevented many from posting location information online.

After purchasing sound bytes of various songbirds from a sound consultant in London and combing them with soothing music, Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris had the recording play from speakers placed along the main streets of Lancaster.

Crime rates in the city have dropped significantly since the bird recordings began their song. Minor crime has fallen 15 percent and major crimes have decreased 6 percent, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The recording has been calming the people of Lancaster, Parris said, making them less inclined to act criminally.

“We’re not seeing that impulse-control crime,” Parris said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “It has just been astonishing to us how the community has changed as a result of a one-half-mile stretch.”

Eileen Bjornstrom, a U. Missouri associate professor of sociology, did not rule out the possibility of the chirping having some affect, but she said there could be other reasons for the trend in Lancaster.

“Crime has been declining in many places for a while now, including Lancaster.” Bjornstrom said. “If they were already experiencing a decline, the continued decline may have continued regardless of the chirping. This is not to say there is no value in the chirping. If people like it, then it probably does no harm and it may put those who enjoy it in a better mood, but that is an issue that is separate from whether it reduces crime or not.”

Columbia, Mo. has been following the nationwide pattern. Since 2009, there has been a drop in larceny theft throughout the city.

While Bjornstrom had never heard of any studies that connected pleasant sounds to criminal tendencies, she did know of a few that discussed the effects of unpleasant sounds.

“Persistent unpleasant neighborhood noise has been related to health because it can be stressful,” she said, referencing car horns, police sirens or gunshots. “Excessive unpleasant noise may tend to occur in the same places as crime, but it would likely be because the areas that do not have strong informal social control are less able to control both crime and excessive noise, not because noise causes crime.”

Some MU students said they thought the bird initiative could be plausible.

“It seems like their might be some soothing aspects to having bird music played in the streets, but at the same time, I don’t know if there’s much science to back it up,” freshman Aaron Kressig said.

Others were not convinced.

“I think it’s a waste of money,” freshman James Benoist said. “If you put chirping noises in downtown St. Louis it wouldn’t have any effect.”

Some students, such as sophomore Michael Derstine, thought the idea was ridiculous.

“I don’t think that it’s valid,” Derstine said. “Even if there is a small chance that there’s a correlation between the two, there’s no evidence to prove it is the cause.”

The Feb. 2 report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C., cites roughly 5,000 news reports from October 2003 to November 2011 involving defensive gun usage. However, the authors, Clayton Cramer and David Burnett, said the actual number of cases is much higher, as many instances are not covered by the media.

“Many defensive gun uses never make the news,” the report said. “After all, ‘Man Scares away Burglar, No Shots Fired’ is not particularly newsworthy.”

Among the researchers’ findings were 285 incidents involving concealed carry licenses, 154 instances involving defensive gun use by women, and 21 cases for minors and 201 for seniors. For specific crimes, 65 carjackings saw defensive gun usage, as did 25 rapes.

The authors also said concealed carry policies on college campuses lead to a reduction in crime, using two Colorado schools as test cases. After the state enacted its concealed carry law in 2003, Colorado State U. decided to allow students to carry concealed weapons while U. Colorado prohibited them. The report found a 60 percent decrease in crime at Colorado State since 2004, while U. Colorado saw a 35 percent increase during the same time period.

“(It does not) seem likely that a would-be robber would be deterred because of stickers on the doors announcing that armed robbery is severely frowned upon by the student code of conduct,” the report said. “Conversely, a campus that allows concealed carry, and where even one student, professor, or even a member of the maintenance staff is armed, would present a much riskier target to criminals.”

The study comes just days after 35 year old Nazir Al-Mujaahid of Milwaukee shot a robber at an Aldi grocery store in what has become Wisconsin’s first major instance of a concealed carry license being used to shoot in self-defense.

The Jan. 30 incident saw Al-Mujaahid fire six or seven shots at the suspected robber, who subsequently dropped his shotgun and fled the store. According to a criminal complaint, the shotgun was not actually loaded and was just a tool to scare the cashier into giving the suspect money.

Although the grocery store posted a sign prohibiting the carrying of firearms inside, Al-Mujaahid will not be charged with violating the store’s ban.

But Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, called the Aldi incident a best-case scenario that was an exception to what he called an otherwise dangerous concealed carry law. Everitt said the concealed carry law is dangerous because it does not have strict time requirements for training.

“How often are you going to have an outcome like this?” Everitt said. “The point is people do not have the training needed to play police officer. Do you want someone who is required to have zero hours of training to open fire in a business you are standing in, under any circumstances?”

Everitt said it was “disturbing” that Al-Mujaahid was breaking the law by bringing a gun into a prohibited location and questioned whether people applying for concealed carry permits were “the most law-abiding people in America.” Al-Mujaahid said he was unaware of the store’s gun ban and would have gone somewhere else had he known about it.

Meghan O’Leary, a junior in Marquette U.’s College of Communication, echoed Everitt’s sentiments, saying the prospect of random people carrying firearms created more opportunities for bad than good.

“By allowing people to conceal guns I don’t think it will protect people, but (it will) make things more dangerous,” O’Leary said. “I don’t feel safe knowing anyone around me could be carrying a gun.”

“I refused to buy him a shirt and he grabbed me by my necklace,” the young woman remembers.

He pulled the jewelry around her neck so tightly she could feel her skin tearing. She raised her hands to stop him from choking her, and that is when the necklace broke.

He balled up his fist and launched it at her. This action led to a gateway of frequent attacks.

Black eyes, scars, scratches and emotional trauma will never be a description of her life again, she said.

Her name is Jadore Asante, a 21-year-old, fourth-year health care management student Florida A&M U., and she considers herself a conqueror of domestic violence. She has chosen to take her life back and break the silence.

Asante met her abuser in high school when she was just a junior. He was the new kid with a troubled past. She quickly identified with him because they both had been raised outside the country. Their relationship got serious very quickly.

His anger issues became apparent about a year ago.

“He would let a phone call unanswered enrage him,” Asante said.

The abuse started with pushing and shoving over small things.

Kermara Robillard, one of Asante’s closest friends, witnessed attacks on Asante. She would dread going places with the couple for fear of Asante’s safety.

“There was the time at the bowling alley when he attempted to choke her in front of everyone,” Robillard remembers.

Angry and shocked, Robillard along with a few other friends helped pull the attacker off Asante.

“I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for her. I knew she deserved a lot more respect, more than he could offer,” said Robillard.

Once the abuse became frequent and makeup wasn’t enough to cover the bruises and pain, she knew enough was enough. She was drowning in misery and needed a way out. The final attack an adult stepped in, which caused the innocent Samaritan to suffer a broken nose.

“Domestic violence can happen to anyone,” said Leisa Wiseman, a spokeswoman for the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“It is extremely important to seek help if you are in an abusive relationship.”

Abuse comes in all forms, not just physical,” Wiseman said. For immediate assistance with domestic violence please call 1-800-500-1119 for the 24-hour help line.

The leading killer of African-American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide at the hands of a current or former intimate partner, according to the American Bar Association.

Asante noticed that her relationship was unsafe and it needed to end. She told her family of that her boyfriend was abusing her. Asante’s family was hurt by her secret but gave her encouragement and prayed for her.

As a result of her experience, Asante makes it her priority to help and support others who may be in the same situation by offering caring advice.

In 2010, Asante spoke up and out at, at a seminar on domestic violence on Florida A&M campus.

Although Asante is single, she is neither scarred nor damaged by her past. She looks for a strong man who have goals and ambition similar to herself. She lives her life learning from her past and looking forward to a brighter future.

She urges women in abusive relationships to leave.

“It is easier said than done but you’re worth more than being abused by any man or woman, that is not love,” said Asante.

The study also found that on any given weekend, at least 10 percent of students could be hosting a party.

Natalie Milliron, a first-year Ohio State U. student, said this research is definitely in line with her personal experiences.

“Whenever, I go to (off-campus) parties, I would say the people who host them are going pretty crazy,” Milliron said.

Random samples of students were given online surveys on high- and low-risk weekends between 2005-2007, said Cynthia Buettner, assistant professor in the OSU College of Education and Human Ecology and lead author of the study.

Buettner said the research focused on party hosts because it was an audience that had not been closely studied. And the results are not too surprising, Buettner said.

Off-campus party hosts consumed an average of nine drinks while those on campus consumed an average of 4.5 drinks.

Research found that people hosting on-campus parties drink less than those attending.

The average number of drinks consumed by attendees at on- and off-campus parties was about the same: 7.5 drinks.

Students hosting parties on campus might worry about university-sanctioned consequences while off-campus hosts are less likely to do so, Buettner said.

“We know from research that one of the things that makes a difference in people’s drinking is whether they think that the policies and laws around drinking will be enforced and how likely they are to be caught,” she said.

While he agrees with the findings, Tommy Glace, a first-year OSU student, said it all depends on the situation.

“If somebody has all these people in their house they might (not drink) to watch what people are doing,” Glace said. “But it depends on the person.”

Milliron said she agrees there might be something to be said for staying sober if you’re hosting a party.

“I’ve actually had a bunch of friends who have had stuff stolen because they just don’t know what’s going on,” Milliron said.

On the other hand, safety could also be a factor that would encourage off-campus party hosts to drink more heavily.

“When you go to parties, you can’t drink to the point where you can pass out, you have to walk home,” Milliron said. “But (off-campus party hosts) can just pass out and go upstairs or go to bed.”

Max Layman, a third-year OSU student, hosts large parties once or twice a quarter with his roommates and said some party hosts drink to be social.

“If you’re having a party, you want to enjoy it,” Layman said.

Layman said money might also be an issue for off-campus hosts. If you have a party and buy alcohol, you’re probably going to drink some of it because you paid for it, Layman said.

Buettner said she hopes students who do host are aware of the risks.

“(As a party host), you’re less likely to be able to control the party at your place because you’ve had too much to drink,” Buettner said. “All of the risks that go along with drinking too much are just increased if you’re a party host off campus.”

According to the New York Times, Witt’s candidacy for the prestigious scholarship was suspended prior to the interview date due to allegations of sexual assault against the student. The Rhodes Trust received word “through unofficial channels” that an anonymous female at Yale had accused the quarterback of sexual assault without filing a formal complaint, the Times reported.

In response, the foundation asked Yale President Richard C. Levin and other officials whether Witt still had their endorsement. Before Yale made a formal decision, according to the Times, Witt announced his intention to play in The Game and withdraw his application for the scholarship.

Many questions remain about what happened in the week before the Bulldogs took the field—with Witt as a starter—and were dominated by Harvard, 45-7. It is unclear how much Witt, Yale officials, or the Rhodes Trust knew about the assault allegations at any point.

According to the Times, Witt has already finished his coursework. Though he is working on his senior essay, he is not enrolled at Yale and is instead preparing in California for the upcoming NFL draft.

Witt is still listed on the Yale College Online Facebook, according to the Yale Daily News.

Witt could not be reached for comment early Friday morning.

A three-year starter for the Bulldogs, Witt transferred to Yale from U. Nebraska after the 2008 season—in part because he wanted to escape the attention that came with being a football player on a Big 12 campus, The Boston Globe wrote at the time.

But Witt found himself in the spotlight again when he revealed that his final interview for the Rhodes Scholarship coincided with the 2011 iteration of The Game. After Witt announced his intention to compete against Harvard rather than for the scholarship, national media outlets championed him as the consummate team player.

Witt, who is attempting to find a spot in the NFL, now faces a different kind of scrutiny.

Before the allegations, character was often cited by commentators as one of Witt’s strengths, according to Eric Galko, director of scouting for a website which discusses prospective NFL draft picks. Galko said that Witt was ranked the 23rd best quarterback in this year’s class. Other websites have him ranked as highly as 17th.

The recent news, Galko said to The Crimson, could be a “huge detriment” to his draft potential.

“NFL teams have whole security teams to look into stuff like this,” Galko said.

We joke about stalking all the time. Stalking someone is normal for my friends.

Jokes about stalking are common. Stalking type behaviors, especially for young people in high school or college, may seem normal.

It may be fine to text or call someone 50 times a day. It may be fine to feel like someone is following you because you keep noticing them everywhere you go. It may be fine for your boyfriend or someone who wants to date you to wait for you somewhere you didn’t think they would be.

However, it is not okay when these kinds of things are unwanted, repeated and make you afraid or concerned for your safety or the safety of someone close to you. That is when it crosses the line to stalking.

Stalking is a deliberate set of tactics used to scare, annoy, harass, sabotage or control their target. Even if your friends or others tell you not to be afraid or concerned, you should always trust your instincts and take precautions if this is happening to you.

Stalking is just about somebody romantically trying to pursue his or her object of desire.

Pursuing someone for a date often entails repeated and potentially persistent contact attempts especially when the other person does not seem initially receptive. This behavior appears to overlap with some aspects of stalking.

In fact, movies often portray the persistent male as the one who eventually wins over his love interest in the end. So, yes, sometimes individuals who are trying to establish or maintain a relationship engage in repeated texts, Facebook postings, phone calls and maybe even following someone around.

However, it crosses the line when it becomes unwanted and when it causes fear or concern for safety in the person being targeted with this kind of attention.

Celebrities are more likely to experience stalking than someone I know personally.

We have all heard about celebrity stalking such as the cases of Erin Andrews, Selena Gomez, Madonna and David Letterman. While stalking does happen to celebrities, politicians and others in the media, it also commonly happens to people not in the public eye.

For example, a random household survey of regular people (non-celebrities) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men had been stalked and were frightened by the stalking.

In fact, college students are at high risk of being stalked.

Stalking is creepy and annoying, but not dangerous.

Stalking is creepy and annoying — but it can also be dangerous. Stalkers can become violent and should be taken seriously.

In fact, stalking is a crime in all 50 states.

The specific motives of stalkers are not all that clear. Some researchers speculate that stalkers are obsessed with the target, feel angry and want revenge, want to establish or maintain a relationship or are looking for any kind of attention from the target, including fear.

Typically, it is committed by people we know and should be able to trust — current or ex-partners, classmates, co-workers and other acquaintances.

Recent research by UK professor Dr. TK Logan and her colleagues shows that stalking by a controlling, jealous and violent boyfriend is especially dangerous.

Specifically, some research shows that partner stalkers make more violent threats and are more likely to act on those threats than stalkers who do not target partners or ex-partners.

However, being stalked by anyone whether they are a stranger, an acquaintance or a current or ex-partner can be dangerous.

Modern technology is too expensive and confusing for most stalkers to use.

Using the computer to stalk and harass is common — often referred to as cyber-stalking.

Additionally, surveillance technology can be purchased for a relatively small amount of money and is often used in creative ways.

If you ignore stalking or confront the stalker, it will stop.

Ignoring or confronting the stalker often does not work and may even increase the danger. It is important to remember that each situation is different and you may want to work with a professional to develop a safety plan.

I understand these problems because I myself have endured them. If I were to fully enumerate all of the dehumanizing experiences my friends and I have survived here — experiences that were ironically advertised to us as indispensable elements of the “Dartmouth Experience” — I would have too few words left in this column to adequately explain how the Kim administration has not done enough to address these crises. They have yet to take decisive action to diagnose and cure the abuse that plagues Dartmouth.

I was a member of a fraternity that asked pledges, in order to become a brother, to: swim in a kiddie pool full of vomit, urine, fecal matter, semen and rotten food products; eat omelets made of vomit; chug cups of vinegar, which in one case caused a pledge to vomit blood; drink beers poured down fellow pledges’ ass cracks; and vomit on other pledges, among other abuses. Certainly, pledges could have refused these orders. However, under extreme peer pressure and the desire to “be a brother,” most acquiesced. While not every pledge is asked to do these things, many are. The specific tasks vary year to year, but these are things I’ve witnessed as a member of the fraternity.

As a pledge, I ceased to be a human being; instead, I became “whale shit.” In the process, I, my fellow pledges and all pledges since, have been implicitly encouraged to treat Dartmouth women with about the same respect with which we treated each other in our social spaces: none. Fraternity life is at the core of the College’s human and cultural dysfunctions.

I have also talked with fellow brothers who have privately expressed dismay and sometimes emotional or psychological pain about their experiences but have been unable to break the cycle of abuse they had been so tortured by; they participate in the rituals year to year. It is a cycle that, as I myself have experienced, is difficult to break even after deep introspection. One of the things I’ve learned at Dartmouth — one thing that sets a psychological precedent for many Dartmouth men — is that good people can do awful things to one other for absolutely no reason. There is an intoxicating nihilism at the center of our culture that fraternities perpetuate through pathological lies while continuing the abuses. Sadly, I have learned this through my experiences dealing with my former fraternity.

The truth is that my experience is not the exception, but rather the norm. The administration is fully aware of what goes on in our basements; I know this because I have had frank conversations with several high-level administrators. This column should not be a surprise to Dr. Kim, since it was David Spalding and April Thompson with whom I initially met and shared the troubling, graphic story of my experience as a Dartmouth man, replete with related media and places and times of future acts of hazing. Not enough was done: Hanover Police and the fraternity’s national organization were alerted, but the Hanover Police Department investigation only included an event that occurred outside of the house and was inconclusive. The national organization voiced strong complaints to two members over the summer — a development in July that seemed to me to be positive — but did not follow up its words with any kind of action or investigation.

And then the College’s action ended there. The administrators with whom I spoke claimed that they could do nothing more because I had asked to remain anonymous. I find that claim hard to believe. During my pledge term, the house came under serious scrutiny for hazing due to a tip trifling in comparison to the information I had provided them: In this case, a professor overheard two pledges in his class discussing vomiting milk. That inquiry involved interviews of pledges, who, at the suggestion of the house’s officers, offered preconceived, false denials.

It is my sincere hope that the administration can summon the courage to once and for all address the hazing and attendant assault culture that define the Greek experience at Dartmouth. The Greek system cannot continue this course, at my former fraternity or at others — its culture requires extensive oversight and restructuring.

Perhaps the College could begin by finally withdrawing its recognition of fraternities that brazenly flout the law, College policy and basic human decency. Perhaps Greek life could be integrated as coeducational, if not suspended indefinitely until a suitable, positive alternative is devised. A residential college system would uphold Dartmouth’s rich social tradition while respecting the humanity of students in a way that current Greek life does not. Systems similar to these have been implemented with great success at Dartmouth’s peer institutions.

I know firsthand that we need real change that addresses the causes of our culture of disrespect; we also need to forgive each other, forgive ourselves and have courage. We can end the abuse. It is a small college, but there are those of us who feel the need to tell the truth about it.

Champion, who died in November, was allegedly hazed and beaten by band members at the Florida Classic in Orlando.

The Orange County Medical Examiner’s office quickly ruled the drum major’s death as a homicide. The medical examiner reported Champion’s death as a result of bruising from blunt force trauma in many areas of his body.

New details have surfaced suggesting Champion’s death can be linked to his sexual orientation; alleging the incident was a hate crime because he was gay. Champion’s parents however, are refuting such claims. Though they discovered their son was gay, the family’s attorney said his death was not a “hate crime” but a “hazing crime,” according to ABC Worldnews.

According to Kristi Gordon, FDLE’s public information officer, there haven’t been any arrests made but investigators are working diligently to solve the case. “We are conducting a full and thorough investigation,” Gordon said.

“I hope investigators get to the root of the situation soon so a lot of rumors can rest and questions can be answered,” said Alex Kirkland, a fourth-year psychology student from West Palm Beach, Fla.

Though FDLE’s conducting a joint investigation with the Orange County Sheriff Office to solve the case, they are also conducting independent investigations relating to Champion’s death.

According to FDLE’s communications coordinator, Keith Kameg, the investigation regarding financial improprieties in the band is also ongoing and active.

Gov. Rick Scott requested FDLE to investigate possible fraud and financial misconduct in the band after Champion’s death.

“I thought they would’ve made an arrest by now due to the number of witnesses that was there,” said Demestra Davis, a Leon county resident. “The family needs closure.”

Though three students were recently arrested and charged for allegedly hazing and beating band member Bria Hunter, possible suspects in Champion’s case are still unknown.

Because the investigation is classified as ongoing and active, FDLE’s public information, officer as well as the communications coordinator, are not releasing any further details at this time.

Nearly one in three people will be arrested by the age of 23, according to a study published in the January 2012 edition of Pediatrics, a peer-reviewed national journal. When the study was published in 1967, researchers found 22 percent of young adults would be arrested by age 23. In the latest study, researchers concluded 30.2 percent of people will be arrested by age 23, said principal author of the study Robert Brame.

But Penn State U. professor of sociology and crime, law and justice John Kramer said the increase in arrests isn’t due to an increase in crime. In fact, the crime rate has substantially decreased in the last 15 years, Kramer said.

Rather, Kramer attributes the increase of youth arrests to a more formal legal system in the United States.

“Fifty percent of the time, we expected delinquent activity to just be reported to our parents,” Kramer said, referring to his generation’s interaction with police several decades ago.

Over the past 40 years, laws have also expanded, Kramer said, which contributes to the increased number of arrests. For example, motor vehicle laws and underage drinking laws are stricter now than ever before, Kramer said.

Brame, also a professor at U. North Carolina-Charlotte, echoed Kramer’s reasoning. He added that many more incidents will trigger law enforcement involvement today than in the past.

Strict “no tolerance” policies in schools also did not exist when the study was conducted more than 40 years ago, Brame said, which may have contributed to the increased number of arrests.

Because of the changing times, Brame said an updated study “needed to be done.”

Using data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics between 1997 and 2008, researchers analyzed individuals who were between the ages of 12 and 16 at the end of 1996, Brame said.

The same group was asked a variety of questions over the 11-year time period. One of the questions was if the individual has been arrested or taken into custody for something other than major traffic violations, Brame said.

To experts like Kramer and Brame, the results were not surprising.

Kramer said during criminology classes he instructs, he teaches his students the recent “broken window” movement of police — another reason why it may be more common for youth to be arrested.

The police mentality, he said, is that small things can become big things. More serious crimes can occur if police are lenient and do not report less serious offenses, he said.

Forty years ago, a crime such as vandalism may have resulted in just a phone call home. Police must now file the crime in the legal system to deter more serious crimes committed by the same person, Kramer said.

Through his more than 20 years experience as a Pittsburgh magisterial district judge and private attorney, Lou Coles said he has seen firsthand that low-level offenses are treated differently now than they were in the past.

Coles said on Friday and Saturday nights, it is very common for police to arrest people who drink alcohol on the streets or urinate in public. But decades ago, police would have just issued a citation, instead of making an arrest, Coles said.

One possible reason, Coles said, is the money each arrest brings the municipality.

“Crime is a gross business,” Coles said. “It keeps lawyers, judges and police in business.”

The new definition will address rape of a person of any gender, rape using objects and oral penetration of a sex organ. The definition also stipulates that a person can be mentally or physically incapable of consenting to sexual activity.

The current definition — first proposed in 1927 and adopted in 1929 — for national data collecting purposes defines rape as the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.”

Government officials said this change was not prompted by recent sexual abuse charges brought against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky is charged with 52 counts of child sexual abuse involving males.

“While the new definition includes committed assaults that are against boys and men, that’s only one component,” White House Adviser on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal said.

FBI Director Robert Muller endorsed the change on December 21, 2011. Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division David Cuthbertson said based on the new definition, the Uniform Crime Report service does expect to see an increase in the number of rapes reported nationally.

Cuthbertson said he expects it to take a few years before the FBI will be able to fully see the impact of the new definition.

The Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Director Susan Carbon said the old definition led to inaccurate national statistics, which was a major reason why the change needed to be made.

“The definition was outdated, and it was narrow,” Carbon said.

She also said people who were “victims” of the types of rape that were excluded from the previous definition, were pained that the crime committed against them was not recognized on a national level.

With the change, Carbon said rape will now be reported more accurately nationwide.

According to The News Leader, a Virginia newspaper, Thursday’s first warning went out in six minutes, and five alerts and updates were posted in less than two hours.

“The school used technology to the fullest and kept a widespread campus community connected, informed and safe. Text messages, electronic message boards, emails and the school’s website all quickly warned of shots being fired and announced a lockdown shortly,” according to The News Leader.

VT’s student paper, the Collegiate Times, noted that social media played an important role in spreading the alerts when some students had trouble with cell phones.

Sadly, as Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld noted in the Washington Post, tragedies like this remind us that “there will always be pure evil in our midst.” Even though the latest shooting was not as extraordinary as the shooting spree in 2007, it was a test to VT’s courage and security in times like this. Schools nationwide should learn from VT’s steps taken toward improving emergency preparedness.

Investigators have now identified the slain officer as Deriek Crouse, a four-year veteran of the school’s police force. The gunman’s name has not been released.

“At this time, Virginia State Police are still waiting for the Medical Examiner to make positive identification of the male gunman,” said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller. “Once identification is made, then investigators can formally notify his next of kin. At that time, Virginia State Police will release his name.”

Police confirmed that the gunman was not a Virginia Tech student, and said that there was no evidence that Crouse knew his killer. Investigators did say that there was a “likelihood” that the gunman was linked to a carjacking the day before the killings.

Friday, Virginia State Police shared new details of Crouse’s murder and the events leading up to the gunman’s eventual suicide.

According to investigators, at around 12:15pm on Thursday, Crouse was sitting in his his unmarked Crown Victoria patrol car during a traffic stop in the Coliseum parking lot on the Virginia Tech campus. The killer approached and shot Crouse, killing him.

The dashcam in Crouse’s car captured video of a man with a handgun near his car at the time of the shooting.

Police say the shooter then ran off to change his clothes.

Geller said the gunman “put a pullover top and wool cap into a backpack. The backpack was recovered outside the Greenhouses later Thursday afternoon by a Blacksburg Police Officer.”

Around 12:45 a Montgomery County sheriff’s deputy saw a man in a parking lot approximately a half-mile from the scene of the original shooting.

During Friday’s press conference Geller said, “He was a lone man, walking through the lot, with furtive movements. It was a little suspicious,”

By the time that deputy got to the suspect, police say he was already dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators say that no one actually saw the man shoot himself. That man did not have any identification on him.

Ballistic testing later confirmed that the gun the suspect used to kill himself was the same weapon that killed Crouse.

Virginia Tech police say Crouse was a 39-year-old Army veteran from Christiansburg, Va. He is survived by his wife and five children and step-children.

A memorial fund has been established to help Crouse’s family. Those wishing to contribute can mail checks, payable to “Deriek Crouse Memorial Fund,” to the address below:

National Bank of Blacksburg
Attn: Dana Sutphin
P.O. Box 90002
Blacksburg, VA 24062-9002

A second person was found dead approximately a quarter-mile away. NBC News reported that police believe that second body was the shooter, but police refused to confirm that at a Thursday afternoon press conference. Investigators did say they believed there was “no longer an active threat” to the campus and surrounding area.

It happened just before 12:30 pm, after a campus police officer made a traffic stop in a parking lot just outside Cassell Coliseum, the school’s basketball arena. Investigators say they do not believe the shooter was in the car that was stopped, but were not sure whether the officer was specifically targeted. Witnesses told police that the shooter ran off, in the direction of I-Lot, another campus parking lot.

Police saw a suspicious person in that area around 1:00 pm and tried to make contact with him. That person was found dead a short time later. Police identified him as a white male, who had suffered a gunshot wound.

It was initially believed to be a second victim, but late Thursday afternoon, NBC News reported that police believe it may have been be the shooter. Police say that they did not shoot him.

Virginia State police identified the officer killed as a 4-year veteran of the Virginia Tech Police Department in the patrol division, but have not publicly announced the officer’s name or the name of the suspected shooter.

The campus was locked down for approximately four hours as police searched the school and surrounding areas for the gunmen. Students were told to stay inside in secure areas. Just after 4:30pm, the school posted an “all clear” update on its website. Virginia Tech canceled all final exams scheduled for Friday.

The incident is a terrifying reminder of the 2007 shooting rampage on campus that left 33 people, including the shooter, dead. That was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

In that case, Seung-Hui Cho chained the doors of a classroom building closed on April 16, 2007 and killed 32 people before committing suicide.

The school posted an alert on www.VT.edu, confirming the deaths.

According to the school’s report, the incident started with a routine traffic stop in the parking lot near the Coliseum, the school’s basketball arena. During that traffic stop, the police officer was shot and killed.

Witnesses reported the shooter running away from the scene, toward another parking lot, near Duck Pond Drive. Police found a second person dead at that parking lot. Police have not made the identity of either of the victims public at this time.

The shooter is described as a white male wearing gray sweat pants, a gray hat with a neon green brim, a maroon hoodie and a backpack.

Virginia State Police have now taken over the investigation.

Virginia Tech has advised students and faculty to stay indoors in secure areas, and warned visitors not to come to campus. The school also canceled final exams scheduled for Friday.

There is a media briefing now scheduled for 4:30pm on campus.

The incident is a terrifying reminder of the 2007 shooting rampage on campus that left 33 people, including the shooter, dead. That was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

In that case, Seung-Hui Cho chained the doors of a classroom building closed on April 16, 2007 and killed 32 people before committing suicide.

The Virginia Tech website says the suspect is still at large.

“Stay indoors. Secure in place,” the site says.

Editor’s note: This article contains graphic content.

An 18-year-old male testified that while Jerry Sandusky sexually abused him in the basement of the Sandusky residence, he cried for help, thinking Sandusky’s wife, Dorothy, was upstairs.

But, according to a recently released grand jury presentment, those cries went unanswered.

In addition to the 18-year-old male, labeled in the grand jury presentment as “Victim 9,” another boy, labeled in the grand jury presentment as “Victim 10,” testified that former Penn State assistant football coach Sandusky sexually abused him.

Sandusky is charged with four counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two counts of unlawful contact with a minor. He is also charged with one count of indecent assault and two counts of endangering the welfare of children.

Sandusky is also charged with one count of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors.

These charges come in addition to charges filed on Nov. 5, when Sandusky was charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse involving eight different boys he met through his charity, The Second Mile, according to an initial grand jury presentment.

Coverage of the original grand jury presentment connected to the Jerry Sandusky case can be viewed here.

The lawyers representing one of those Sandusky was originally charged with sexually abusing, Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, released a statement saying they had every reason to believe more charges would be brought in the case. The attorneys maintain the anonymity of their client and will not disclose which boy they represent.

“Victims, many of whom have kept silent about Jerry Sandusky’s abuse for years, are now gaining the strength to come forward and speak about what has happened to them,” Shubin said in the statement.

“Victim 9”

According to the latest grand jury presentment, Sandusky sexually assaulted a person identified as “Victim 9” at the Sandusky residence and at a State College hotel.

The boy was introduced to Sandusky through The Second Mile in 2004. According to the presentment, the boy participated in Second Mile camps and activities from 2004 to 2008 and was first introduced to Sandusky at a pool activity during his second summer at the camp. During this time, the boy was 11 or 12 years old, according to the presentment.

Over time, Sandusky gave the boy gifts and money and took him to Penn State football games, according to the presentment. The boy also regularly spent the night in a bedroom in Sandusky’s basement, according to the presentment.

He said he initially thought of Sandusky’s actions as “simple acts of affection” that later led to sexual assaults, according to the presentment.

The boy testified that Sandusky was “just a nice guy.”

“Like he went to church every weekend, his kids would come over every once and a while and stuff,” the boy told the grand jury. “And after a while, like, he got used to me and stuff and started getting further and further, wanting — to touchy feely.”

When the boy stayed at the Sandusky residence, he was specifically told to stay in the basement, where he ate and slept, according to the presentment. There, the boy told the grand jury, Sandusky forced him to perform oral sex on him several times.

According to the presentment, Sandusky also tried to anally penetrate the boy on at least 16 occasions, and at times, did penetrate him.

He said that despite being in the home many times, he had “barely any” contact with Sandusky’s wife, Dorothy, who “never” came into the basement when he was there, according to the presentment.

The boy also testified before the grand jury that, on at least one occasion, he screamed for help because he knew Sandusky’s wife was upstairs in their home — but no one responded, according to the presentment.

On multiple occasions, Sandusky also exposed his penis to the boy at an unoccupied hotel pool in the State College area, the boy testified. On other occasions at the hotel, Sandusky had the boy touch Sandusky’s erect penis and perform oral sex on him.

According to the presentment, Sandusky told the boy that he loved and cared for him and that everything was to be kept secret.

“Victim 10”

The person identified as “Victim 10” testified before the grand jury that Sandusky performed sexual acts on him and would at times ask the boy to reciprocate, according to the grand jury presentment.

The boy was involved with The Second Mile during 1997 when he was 10 years old, according to the presentment, and was referred to The Second Mile by a counselor because of difficulties in his home life.

The boy told the grand jury that he attended several football games with him and spent time at Sandusky’s house, but he said he never spent the night there.

The boy testified that at the house, the two of them would wrestle in Sandusky’s basement. There, he said Sandusky would sometimes pull down the boy’s gym shorts and perform oral sex on him, which startled the boy, according to the grand jury presentment.

Eventually, Sandusky began asking the boy to perform oral sex on him, and the boy complied, according to the presentment.

The boy said that Sandusky cuddled with him on the floor and Sandusky would rub the boy’s body with his hands, according to the presentment.

According to the grand jury presentment, Sandusky also “indecently touched” the boy in an outdoor pool on campus. He testified that Sandusky would swim underneath him and put him on his shoulders.

When Sandusky did this, he would slide his hands underneath the boy’s swimming suit and touch the boy’s genitals, according to the presentment.

The boy also testified that Sandusky bought him gifts and clothes and told him he loved him “frequently,” according to the grand jury presentment.

Sandusky’s encounters with the boy ended when they were driving in the car and Sandusky unzipped his pants, exposing his penis, according to the presentment. He indicated that he wanted the boy to perform oral sex on him, and Sandusky was displeased when the boy refused, according to the presentment.

After this incident, the boy told his foster mother that he did not wish to spend any more time with Sandusky.

Sandusky continues to maintain his innocence through his attorney, Joe Amendola.

Jerry Sandusky was put behind bars Wednesday after being charged with 12 additional counts of child sexual abuse.

The new charges stem from the testimonies of two more men — both affiliated with The Second Mile — who came forward, saying former assistant football coach Sandusky sexually abused them.

Sandusky was escorted out of his home in handcuffs Wednesday afternoon and was transported to his arraignment while wearing a Penn State wrestling tracksuit.

He was arraigned at Magisterial District Judge Daniel Hoffman’s office, under Judge Robert Scott, a senior judge from Westmoreland County, who is presiding over the case.

The prosecution asked Scott to set bail at $1 million, citing that Sandusky has been in contact with the boy labeled “Victim 9” in the new grand jury presentment. After Sandusky’s lawyer, Joe Amendola, disputed the request, Scott set bail at $250,000.

In addition to the straight bail, Sandusky is required to wear an electronic monitoring device and may not step foot on Penn State property.

Scott also said Sandusky should not have unsupervised contact with minors and cannot contact any of the witnesses or individuals he is charged with abusing.

The use of the electronic monitoring device is similar to being on house arrest, Amendola said after the arraignment.

Sandusky was unable to post the $250,000 bail, and was subsequently processed at the Centre County Correctional Facility.

Scott said during the arraignment that Sandusky can post bail through cash, property or a bondsman. Officials at the Centre County Courthouse confirmed Amendola inquired about posting property to pay for the bail following the arraignment.

No such bail was posted, as of press time Wednesday.

Amendola said a plan is in place to post bail, because additional charges against Sandusky were anticipated by defense.

Sandusky is charged with four counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two counts of unlawful contact with a minor, both first-degree felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison each.

He is also charged with one count of indecent assault and two counts of endangering the welfare of children, both third-degree felonies, each punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Sandusky is also charged with one count of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors, which are both first-degree misdemeanors, each punishable by up to five years in prison.

These charges were brought in addition to the 40 counts on seven charges of sexual abuse that were filed against Sandusky on Nov. 5.

In addition to prompting Fine’s firing, these developments caused the university’s head basketball coach Jim Boeheim to apologize for comments he made earlier this month in which he said one of Fine’s accusers was “lying” and that “the kid behind this is trying to get money.” Although a police investigation of Fine’s conduct is still ongoing and he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in accordance with due process, the response that the allegations elicited from Boeheim is a sad follow-up to the recent revelation that Joe Paterno failed to notify law enforcement authorities about allegations of child molestation lodged against Jerry Sandusky, one of his assistant football coaches while at Penn State. These two situations are evidence that major institutions such as colleges and universities need to offer better guidance to employees about how they should handle allegations of sexual misconduct that are filed against their colleagues so as to ensure that accusations are properly investigated and victims are not intimidated into silence.

Chief among the recommendations should be that employees refrain from publicly commenting about allegations of which they lack direct knowledge out of deference for the potential victims of abuse. One of the greatest hurdles to successfully bringing child molesters to justice is that victims often are unwilling to come forward because of the backlash they fear from friends, family and other members of their communities. This concern is amplified in cases such as the one at Syracuse, where the alleged perpetrator is a person of prominence who has a strong public reputation and many resources available to defend himself. Institutions should make clear to their employees that while they are entitled to defend themselves as Boeheim did when accused of knowing about Fine’s alleged misconduct, it is wholly unacceptable to impugn the motives of those who accuse their colleagues.

Moreover, institutions should make clear that employees have a duty to report any credible complaints of sexual misconduct to law enforcement officials in addition to their superiors within the organization. Even when the proper internal procedures are in place for handling such accusations, those charged with carrying them out may be influenced by personal desires to protect their friends or institutions. These shortcomings were on vivid display at Penn State, where members of the athletic department are alleged to have covered up the accusations against Sandusky in the interests of sparing the university a potential scandal.

They are evident to a lesser extent at Syracuse, where Boeheim demonstrated a significant bias in favor of his assistant coach by immediately calling into question the character of those accusing him of abuse. Although no evidence yet exists to suggest that Boeheim had knowledge of the allegations beyond what the university and police investigated in 2005, his attitude suggests that had complaints been brought to his attention alone he might have viewed them with skepticism and been hesitant to take action.

Fortunately, U. Virginia has already indicated a willingness to review its own approach to addressing allegations of misconduct in light of these scandals. “I want U.Va. to learn from negative events that happen at any university … and to model for our students how we can continue to learn and improve,” President Teresa A. Sullivan told the Board of Visitors shortly after Paterno’s firing at Penn State. Although it is far too late to rectify the injustices done to past victims of child sex abuse, Sullivan should follow through on her pledge to engage in institutional self-reflection so that members of the University community will know how to react should such distressing incidents occur here in the future.

Pinkel was arrested at approximately 10 p.m. Nov. 16 while driving his Chevrolet Avalanche on Keene Street near Broadway. He was pulled over for signal and lane violations, according to a report from the Boone County Sheriff’s Department. His blood alcohol content at the time of the arrest has not been released.

MU Athletics Director Mike Alden sidelined Pinkel for the Texas Tech game less than 24 hours after the arrest. He has been suspended for the week and will return to coach the Border Showdown against Kansas on Saturday.

“This absolutely goes against everything we stand for and everything he teaches his players in regards to social responsibilities,” Alden said in a past Maneater article. “We hold ourselves to very high standards at the University of Missouri, certainly in the athletic program. This is a serious breaking of those responsibilities.”

Pinkel will donate a week’s salary, worth $40,769, to the MU Wellness Resource Center upon his return Thursday. He is no longer eligible for a social responsibility bonus clause in his contract and will face a pay freeze for one year.

Since Missouri qualified for postseason play with Saturday’s victory over Texas Tech, Pinkel will not be eligible for a $75,000 bonus. He is set to lose $306,538 in total salary.

In a statement from the athletics department, Pinkel expressed disappointment regarding his actions and reinforced that no one should drive while intoxicated.

“I did not follow that here and for that, I sincerely apologize to the University of Missouri, to our administration, to the Board of Curators and to our fans,” he said. “I have already met with our staff and communicated with our players and have apologized to them. I accept full responsibility for my actions and will abide by whatever course of action our leadership deems appropriate.”

Laurence Lovette—one of two men accused of kidnapping, robbing and fatally shooting Carson, a Morehead Scholar and then-student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in March 2008—pled not guilty to five charges in a court hearing Thursday. The charges include first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, armed robbery, felony larceny and felony possession of stolen goods, the Office of the Clerk of Superior Court for Orange County confirmed. Jury selection for Lovette’s trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 28.

The case is expected to last through December, said Trish Wells, a victim and witness legal assistant at the Orange and Chatham County District Attorney’s Office.

“I’m not sure [Lovette] expects to be found not guilty on all five charges,” said James Coleman, the John S. Bradway professor of law. “He probably is trying to avoid a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the murder charge.”

Lovette and his co-defendant Demario Atwater allegedly kidnapped Carson, hijacked her SUV and forced her to withdraw $1,400 from automated teller machines before fatally shooting her multiple times the morning of March 5, 2008.

Atwater pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and the other four federal charges related to Carson’s death in 2010 in order to avoid the death penalty. Atwater was sentenced to life in prison without parole in September 2010. Lovette, who was 17-years-old at the time of Carson’s death, is ineligible for the death penalty.

Coleman, who is not at all involved in Lovette’s case, said it is unlikely that Lovette will be pardoned on all five charges because there is photographic evidence of him using Carson’s debit card.

Lovette’s not guilty plea does not indicate guilt or innocence, and is instead a routine part of criminal cases that can force the case to go before a jury, Coleman added.

“The state has the burden of proof to show that he is guilty,” he said. “He does not have to do anything. I would be surprised if he testified.”

Coleman noted that Lovette’s attorney will most likely challenge the state’s evidence by cross-examining the state’s witnesses rather than introduce their own.

The trial will likely attract high media coverage and public interest, especially from the Chapel Hill community who still feels Carson’s absence, Coleman said, noting that although it should not be a factor, public opinion could influence the jury.

“In a high-profile case like this there will be pressure on the jury to convict because it was such a heinous murder that received such large publicity,” Coleman said. “In the back of everyone’s mind the publicity will be a factor.”

In an effort to minimize prejudice amongst potential jury members, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that attorneys from both sides will question potential jury members individually during jury selection rather than as a group, the Herald-Sun reported Friday.

Lovette was also arrested and charged with murder in the January 2008 death of Duke engineering graduate student Abhijit Mahato. The trial date for the Mahato case remains unknown.

Mahato’s death triggered significantly less media coverage than Carson’s.

“There was a discrepancy between the media coverage of the two cases,” Coleman said. “The case of the Duke graduate student was basically ignored while that of Carson became national news.”

Lovette was on probation for burglary and felony theft charges at the time of Carson’s and Mahato’s death, which has raised questions about the integrity of the state’s probation system.

“Probation basically is taking a chance that the person will not commit further crimes and gives the person the opportunity to turn his life around—in this case, it failed,” Coleman said. “The question is to what extent Durham and the state are able to identify the people who are likely to commit crimes again and those who have the chance of turning their lives around.”

Washington was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody after being sentenced. After Circuit Judge Kevin Crane announced the sentence, Washington’s mother stormed out of the courtroom screaming and crying.

“We think (defense attorney Christopher Slusher) did a good job defending Derrick,” Washington’s grandmother Margaret Green said. “I’m not happy with the jurors, obviously.”

Crane denied a motion for a retrial by the defense before Washington was sentenced. Slusher said because there was no evidence, the case became an attack on Washington’s character.

“This case relied on the word of two young women,” Slusher said.

Two victim impact statements were presented and read by Crane, one written by the victim and the other written by her father.

“Her innocence has been taken from her,” her father’s statement, read by assistant prosecuting attorney Andrea Hayes, stated. “She can’t get it back.”

Slusher requested that Washington be given probation instead of jail time, and said he has already suffered enough.

“He will have to be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life,” she said. “He has been the victim of public scrutiny because of his position on the football team. He was kicked out of school. He has suffered enough.”

But Hayes said he deserved the maximum punishment.

“He’s never even taken accountability for what he has done,” Hayes said. “He keeps denying that he has done anything wrong. He may have to suffer, but so will the victim. She will have to deal with this for the rest of her life. She had to get up in front of a court and share intimate details about her life. This has caused her emotional stress and family problems.”

Washington will spend five years in the Missouri Department of Corrections. After he serves his sentence, he will spend 120 days in the Shock Incarceration Program, which is a Missouri program that focuses on life skills, substance abuse education and the development of a community based home plan.

“I was surprised by the verdict first, but I’m very surprised by the sentence,” Green said. “I don’t think the case should have even come to trial. It was dark in (the victim’s) room. She couldn’t see who was in the bed with her, if it was a boy or a girl. It shouldn’t have even gone to trial.”

Neither Slusher nor Washington made statements after sentencing. Slusher said they have plans to appeal the conviction and sentencing.

In wake of the Board of Trustees’ decision to dismiss Penn State President Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno, thousands of students gathered at Old Main at around 10:30 p.m., shouting chants of “F— the Trustees” and “We want Joe.”

To some students, like Andrew Hanselman, Paterno was Penn State.

“Being accepted to Penn State felt like a family, and Joe Paterno was the father. Now that he’s gone my heart is in two,” Hanselman said.

Jimmy Gallagher, raised on the shoulders of students at the top of the Old Main staircase, shouted from a megaphone.

“We stand united as students. We don’t care what anyone else has to say. We want Joe and we want him back,” Gallagher said.

The rally at Old Main lasted for about 20 minutes, then moved to Beaver Canyon at about 11 p.m.

Fireworks were set off near Pugh Street and Beaver Avenue while police officers tried to direct traffic through the mob of people.

One person was raised on the shoulders of other students, starting a “F— the Trustees” chant.

Many expressed their concerns about the Board of Trustees’ decision.

Matt Villani said the Board of Trustees’ decision tarnished Paterno’s legacy at Penn State.

“There’s a large student and alumni outcry against what happened,” Villani said. “They should have let him finish his last home game.”

Despite Paterno not being able to finish the season, Villani said the morale will be higher at the game versus Nebraska Saturday.

During the riot, two light posts were ripped down — one on Beaver and one on College Avenue.

The crowd also tipped over a WTAJ news van on College Avenue, and continued to walk on top of it. The damage included dented car roofs and shattered back windows.

“We support JoePa, but it doesn’t need to result in tipping vans,” Mike Cannata said. “We can show our support in other ways.”

Smells of gasoline saturated East College Avenue after the van was tipped. Gasoline leaked and fire trucks were called to the scene.

“This is the first time I can say I don’t love this school,” said Travis Salters, president of the Penn State chapter of the NAACP.

The crowd lit a small fire on the Old Main lawn which was put out immediately by people standing nearby.

Rocks thrown from crowds on the sides of the road hit one man with a camera and broke car windows.

Penn State text alert called for an official dispersal order for Old Main and downtown State College. Everyone was required to vacate both areas immediately, according to the text.

The crowd on College Avenue dispersed around 1 a.m. Dozens of police officers remained in the street, controlling the few who remained on the sidewalks.

Collegian staff writers Tim Gilbert and Liz Dennerlein, Aria Moyer, Danae Blasso, Lynn Ondrusek, Mindy Szkaradnik, Jessica Weber, Christina Gallagher, Kristin Stoller, Brittany Horn and Stephen Shiflett contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: This article contains graphic content.

Former Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky used university facilities to sexually abuse young boys over a span of at least 10 years, and top university officials lied under oath about their knowledge of the events, according to a 23-page grand jury presentment.

Sandusky, 67, of State College, was indicted Friday on 40 counts on seven different charges stemming from incidents where he allegedly sexually abused eight young boys from The Second Mile program — the non-profit organization he founded in 1977 for underprivileged children — in Penn State football locker rooms, his home and other locations.

Additionally, Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Penn State Interim Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz were each charged Saturday with perjury and failure to report in connection to the case. According to the grand jury’s findings, both men were aware that Sandusky engaged in “sexual conduct” with a young boy in a shower located in the Lasch Football Building and did not notify police.

Curley and Schultz have since requested to step down from their positions — in Curley’s case, temporarily — according to a press release on Penn State Live. Curley asked to be placed on administrative leave, and Senior Associate Athletic Director Mark Sherburne will serve as interim athletic director “until Curley’s legal situation is resolved,” according to the release. Schultz will return to retirement, according to the release.

On Sunday, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the university will pay for the legal counsel for Schultz and Curley because the matter concerns how they acted as employees of the university.

Later that day, Penn State posted on its Facebook page that the funding will come from insurance set aside to pay for legal funding.

President Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno both appeared before the grand jury during the investigation, which began in January 2009. Neither Spanier nor Paterno have been charged.

In a media release issued Saturday from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office, Attorney General Linda Kelly called Sandusky a “sexual predator” who used his job at the university to “prey on young boys” on multiple occasions.

She also said high-profile university officials “allegedly failed to report the sexual assault of a young boy” after they were made aware of information related to the incident, according to the release. Kelly also said in the release that Curley and Schultz lied under oath.

How it began

At the start of 2009, a grand jury launched an investigation that would last nearly three years after a 15-year-old Clinton County teen reported that Sandusky had inappropriate contact with him over a four-year period. Some of the encounters occurred at a Clinton County high school where Sandusky volunteered as an assistant football coach.

During the investigation, the boy said he was 11 or 12 years old when he met Sandusky after attending a Second Mile camp at Penn State. Starting in 2007, Sandusky routinely had the boy stay overnight at his home in State College and took him to professional and college football games.

Sandusky showered the boy with gifts like golf clubs, a computer, clothes and cash, according to the grand jury’s findings.

Sandusky began having unwanted physical contact with him at bedtime, the boy said, which eventually escalated into kissing him and performing sexual acts on him.

The boy tried to cease contact with Sandusky in the spring of 2008. Between January 2008 and July 2009, Sandusky made 118 phone calls to the boy’s home phone, according to Anthony Sassano, a Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office agent. In the same time period, four phone calls were made to Sandusky from the boy’s home phone and one from his mother’s cell phone.

The situation was brought to the attention of law enforcement after the boy’s mother told school officials about the incidents, and then school officials reported it to police.

The “quick action” taken by the high school staff members is “in marked contrast to the reaction of top officials” at Penn State, Kelly said in the media release.

Curley, Schultz charged

Both Curley and Schultz face charges related to their involvement in the case. They were made aware of a similar abuse situation seven years earlier in 2002 and did not notify law enforcement as required by the mandated reporting law, according to the grand jury’s findings.

The men’s lawyers say they are innocent.

Spanier released a statement regarding the situation within several hours of the release of the grand jury’s findings, calling the allegations against Sandusky “troubling” and expressing his “unconditional support” for Curley and Schultz.

“I have known and worked daily with Tim and Gary for more than 16 years. I have complete confidence in how they have handled the allegations about a former University employee,” Spanier said in the statement. “Tim Curley and Gary Schultz operate at the highest levels of honesty, integrity and compassion. I am confident the record will show that these charges are groundless and that they conducted themselves professionally and appropriately.”

In March 2002, a graduate assistant — who was not identified in the grand jury’s findings — entered a locker room in the Lasch Football Building and observed Sandusky subjecting a young boy, around age 10, to anal intercourse, according to the grand jury’s findings.

The graduate assistant told his father what he witnessed, and his father urged him to tell Paterno the next day. Paterno testified that he called Curley, his immediate supervisor, the next day and told him that the graduate assistant saw Sandusky “fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy.”

A week and a half later, the graduate assistant was called to a meeting with Curley and Schultz where he told them what he saw. The men assured him they would look into the matter.

Weeks later, Curley told the graduate assistant that Sandusky’s keys to the locker room were taken away, The Second Mile was notified about the incident and Sandusky was told he could no longer bring children into locker rooms on campus, according to the grand jury’s findings.

Curley later testified that this ban to bring children into the locker rooms was unenforceable.

Neither Curley nor Schultz ever reported the incident to police and the identity of the child was never sought.

Curley denied before the grand jury multiple times that he was told the incident was sexual in nature.

Schultz — who oversaw University Police as part of his administrative role — testified that what he was told was “not that serious” and that he had no indication that an actual crime had occurred. He acknowledged that he knew of a similar investigation of Sandusky that took place in 1998 that yielded no charges.

In 1998, a mother reported Sandusky was with her son in a shower on campus. The incident was reviewed by University Police and then-University counsel Wendell Courtney.

Courtney was, and still is, the lawyer for The Second Mile.

Former Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar decided there was not enough evidence to charge Sandusky after the incident.

The attorney general indicted Curley after the grand jury found that he made a false statement regarding what he was told by the graduate assistant, according to the grand jury’s findings.

Schultz was also charged after the grand jury found that he made a false statement when he testified that he had no indication that a crime had occurred.

Both men were also charged for not reporting the incident to police, as required by Pennsylvania law.

This “failure” to act on reports enabled a “predator” to walk free for years, Kelly said in the media release, adding that this time enabled Sandusky to “target new victims.”

What’s next

Sandusky’s charges include seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, one count of aggravated indecent assault, eight counts of unlawful contact with a minor, eight counts of endangering the welfare of a child, eight counts of corruption of minors, seven counts of indecent assault and one count of attempt to commit indecent assault.

He was taken into custody and released on $100,000 unsecured bail Saturday morning under Magisterial District Judge Leslie Dutchcot. Sandusky is set to appear at his preliminary hearing Nov. 9 at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, according to court documents. He has the legal right to waive this hearing.

Both Curley and Schultz were charged with one count of perjury, punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine, along with one count each of failure to report, punishable by up to 90 days in prison and a $200 fine, according to the attorney general’s media release.

Curley and Schultz are expected to turn themselves in today before Magisterial District Judge Marsha Stewart in Harrisburg. They will go through the prosecution process in Dauphin County, and Sandusky will face prosecution in Centre County.

Comments from Pittsburgh lawyer Thomas J. Farrell show that he plans to have the failure to report charges against Schultz dropped, because according to Farrell, the mandated reporting rules only apply to people who come in direct contact with children. He also claims that the statute of limitation is two years, meaning Schultz would have needed to be charged by 2004.

On Sunday night, members of the Penn State Board of Trustees convened in Old Main for what one trustee called an “emergency executive meeting.” Other trustees declined comment.

Paterno and Spanier have not been charged

Since news of the case broke over the weekend, speculation has been flying regarding what Paterno and Spanier did –– and did not –– do.

Paterno, the winningest coach in Division 1 history, was made aware of the situation and will not be charged.

The suspected child abuse mandated reporting law stipulates that if someone is a staff member and is made aware of suspected child abuse, he or she is required to immediately notify the person in charge of the institution or the designated agent of the person in charge.

Paterno’s direct supervisor is Curley.

In addition to Paterno being aware of the situation, Spanier was also made aware of the information received from the graduate assistant and the steps that were taken by Schultz and Curley as a result, according to the grand jury’s findings.

But Spanier, who has a background in sociology and marriage and family counseling, denied that the incident was reported to him as sexual.

Spanier described what he was told as “Jerry Sandusky in the football building locker area in the shower with a younger child and that they were horsing around in the shower,” according to the grand jury’s findings.

Spanier said he did not find this description to be sexual in nature and was unaware a crime had occurred. He was also not charged in the case.

Investigation revealed more abuse

As the grand jury investigation began in January 2009, it was based only on one incident reported by school officials in Clinton County. After the investigation, reports that Sandusky sexually assaulted seven more boys were uncovered, according to the grand jury’s findings. Sandusky met all of them through The Second Mile.

In 1994, a boy — identified as “Victim 7” in the grand jury’s findings — met Sandusky when he was about 10 years old. Sandusky took the boy to Penn State football games and had him sleep over at his home.

The boy reported that Sandusky made him feel uncomfortable when Sandusky would put his hand on his thigh. At one point, Sandusky put his hands down the boy’s waistband, the now 26-year-old man reported.

Sandusky also bear-hugged him, cracked his back and shared showers with him, according to the grand jury’s findings.

The man told the grand jury he was contacted by Sandusky, Sandusky’s wife and a friend of Sandusky’s before he testified. He said he did not return these phone calls.

Another boy — identified as “Victim 6” in the grand jury presentment — met Sandusky at a Second Mile picnic when he was 7 or 8 years old. He estimated this was sometime between 1994 and 1995.

The contact with this boy initiated the investigation by University Police in 1998 after the boy’s mother found out Sandusky had been showering with him. The detective who was assigned to the case testified that he listened in on a conversation between the boy’s mother and Sandusky.

When she asked Sandusky if his “private parts” touched the boy when he hugged him in the shower, Sandusky replied “I don’t think so… maybe,” according to the grand jury presentment.

The detective advised Sandusky not to shower with any child again, and Sandusky said he would not.

No charges were filed after the 1998 investigation.

Another boy — identified as “Victim 5” in the grand jury presentment — testified that he met Sandusky in 1995 when he was 7 or 8 years old. Sandusky took the boy, now 22, to about 15 football games, and the boy was always taken into the locker rooms.

He told the jury that Sandusky was showering with him and when the boy looked over, Sandusky had an erection. When the boy looked away after feeling uncomfortable, he said Sandusky approached him from behind, pinned him up against the wall and Sandusky placed the boys hand on his erect penis.

The boy walked away from Sandusky and dried himself off, according to the grand jury’s findings. He told the jury he didn’t think he was ever invited to another football game.

Between 1996 and 1997, another boy — identified as “Victim 4” — met Sandusky. According to the grand jury’s findings, this boy was repeatedly subjected to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse at the hands of Sandusky.

The assaults took place in several areas including football buildings on campus and the Toftrees Golf Resort and Conference Center, where the football team and staff stayed prior to home football games.

Sandusky also sexually assaulted the boy when he traveled with the team to bowl games, according to the grand jury’s findings.

The boy, now age 27, reported that Sandusky would initiate contact in the shower by having “soap battles.” Over three years, Sandusky would wrestle with him and maneuver him into positions where the boy’s face would be near Sandusky’s genitals. He would then insert his erect penis into the boy’s mouth, sometimes ejaculating, according to the grand jury presentment.

He also testified Sandusky attempted to penetrate his anus with both his finger and his penis, but the boy resisted these attempts.

In 1999, Sandusky threatened to send the boy home from the Alamo Bowl because he was resisting his sexual advances, according to the presentment.

In 2000, another boy — identified as “Victim 3” in the jury presentment — came into contact with Sandusky through The Second Mile when he was between seventh and eighth grade. Sandusky would initiate physical contact with the boy when they would shower together in locker room showers located on campus.

According to the grand jury presentment, Sandusky would bear hug the boy while his penis was erect, he testified. Also, Sandusky would come into the basement when the boy stayed at his house and tickle his inner thigh and touch his genitals.

The last boy — identified as “Victim 8” in the grand jury presentment — never came forth and was never identified by law enforcement. A janitor who was employed at the time by Penn State, Jim Calhoun, observed Sandusky in the showers of the Lasch Football Building performing oral sex on the young boy.

Calhoun, who suffers from dementia and was unfit to testify, according to the grand jury’s findings, told other staff members what had occurred. These staff members testified based on what Calhoun had told them.

The incident was never reported to law enforcement by anyone involved, according to the grand jury’s findings.

The investigation surrounding Sandusky is ongoing and the search for additional people who may have been sexually abused by Sandusky continues.

Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators from the Office of Attorney General at 814-863-1053 or Pennsylvania State Police at 814-470-2238.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sandusky faces 40 counts on charges including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a minor less than 16 years of age, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault of a minor less than 13 years old and endangering the welfare of a child, among others, according to court documents.

According to the report, both Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz were made aware of a sexual abuse situation in 2002 and failed to report it to police, and were subsequently charged today with perjury and failure to report.

A graduate assistant witnessed Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the showers of the LaschFootball Building in 2002 and reported the information to his father. Head football coach Joe Paterno was made aware of the situation and made both Curley and Schultz aware of the situation, according to the report.

Though Schultz oversaw the Penn State University Police Department as a part of his position, he never reported the incident to police, did not ask the graduate assistant for more information and failed to seek the identity of the child. No one from the university did so, according to the report.

In his testimony, Schultz said there was never any discussion between him and Curley to report the incident to police. Instead, they banned Sandusky from bringing children in the football locker room, according to the report.

President Graham Spanier also testified before the Grand Jury during the investigation and said Curley and Schultz came to him in 2002 to report an “uncomfortable incident” but said it was not reported to him as a sexual matter.

Spanier also denied being aware of the investigation of another incident that occurred in 1998 where Sandusky was questioned on the basis of his involvement with a different boy in showers located on campus.

Spanier and Paterno were not charged in connection with the incidents.

According to the testimony, Sandusky also had access to football locker rooms after he retired as a coach in 1999.

The grand jury reports that parts of Curley’s and Schultz’s testimony were “not credible.”

According to the testimony, Sandusky met eight young boys that he sexually abused through his non-profit organization, The Second Mile — a charity that provides support for underprivileged children.

Sandusky sexually abused at least seven of them in Penn State football facilities such as the Lasch Football Building and the East Area Locker Room, according to testimony.

The Oakland Police Department (OPD) has since released several messages to the community barely hinting at an apology for their actions. In fact, their press release last Wednesday morning denied that they used rubber bullets and flash grenades — “non-lethal” weapons that were, indeed, used by police the night before as seen in videos circulating through the internet.

As has also been widely publicized, the use of these weapons may be lethal in the case of one protestor, Iraq veteran Scott Olsen, who is still hospitalized.

“The City of Oakland Police Department will continue to place the highest value on policing in a manner that is both constitutional and ethical in its mission to provide a safe place to live, work, and play, free of crime and the fear of crime,” said Chief Howard Jordan in a closing remark of Friday’s press release.

We find that Jordan’s flowery language paints a pretty rosy picture in contrast with the actuality of his leadership and the OPD’s actions.  The diction of these releases seem like they are inspired by the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies. Its tone is inappropriate, to say the least, because there was nothing constitutional or ethical about Tuesday’s police response. In fact, it was just the opposite.

The Campanil supports the right to free speech and most of us are disgusted by the behavior of the OPD and their disingenuous press releases.

Our staff is divided on the larger OWS movement, but most of us agree that the incident Tuesday night made us feel a stronger sense of solidarity with the protestors than ever before.

But behind all of this was one family who spent the past year learning to cope with the loss of a son and brother in the best way they knew how: putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.

“Bringing a child into the world, it’s a profound change in your life. Losing a child like this, it’s equally profound,” Sullivan’s father, Barry, said. “It’s not something you get over, it’s not something you put behind you. You do get used to it.”

For the first time since the accident, the Sullivan family spoke to the media and said they do not blame the University for their son’s death.

“We saw people who were in pain like we were in pain, but their’s was compounded by this sense of responsibility,” he said. “Any inclination that we might have felt quickly dissipated. They shared our sorrow.”

Barry said his family has spent more time on Notre Dame’s campus in the year since Sullivan’s death than they had in any previous years.

“I do remember thinking right after Declan died, ‘Will this be a sad place for us? Can we ever come back here and feel happy again?’ And I’m glad that we did,” he said. “They talk about the Notre Dame family, and we definitely feel a part of that.”

Sullivan’s sister, Wyn, is a sophomore at Notre Dame and chose to stay at the University despite the loss of her brother.

She came back to campus the Tuesday following her brother’s death, one day after his funeral, and returned to classes that Wednesday..

“A lot of people asked why I didn’t leave campus, but I feel like it almost would have been worse not being here,” she said. “If I’m having trouble, people understand. There’s a lot of support.”

Wyn, who was a freshman at the time of the accident, said she cherishes the few months she shared with her brother at Notre Dame.

“It helps me to remember him, being here and being in this atmosphere,” she said. “He wouldn’t have wanted me to leave.”

For the Sullivan family, the most important result in the wake of Sullivan’s death was not pointing fingers, but rather making sure similar accidents do not happen again.

As part of Notre Dame’s agreement with the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA), the University started a campaign to raise awareness about scissor lift safety.

Barry said his family was supportive of this venture and he contributed a video clip to the campaign to help raise awareness.

Wyn said enforcing improved safety standards is more important than any monetary fines the University paid.

“The University has so much money, it probably wasn’t a very big hit to them. But that’s not the important part to me,” she said. “As far as any monetary value, how can you put a value [on his life]?”

While Notre Dame conducted an internal investigation into Sullivan’s death, negotiated with IOSHA and eventually came to an agreement, the Sullivans adjusted to a life where the dinner table is always missing a setting and the family is forever one member short.

Wyn said when she thinks of her brother, she remembers goofy times they had — like when he tried on a female Santa costume or the year she and her younger brother, Mac, got Sullivan footsie pajamas for Christmas.

“It was funny watching him run around the house in those,” she said.

Wyn also said her family has grown closer and their outlook on life has changed in the year since Sullivan’s death.

“As cliché as it sounds, living every moment to the fullest and making the most of the time that we have here, we keep that in better perspective than before,” she said.

But on the one-year anniversary of Sullivan’s death, his parents and siblings will take a few moments to remember all that has occurred in the last year.

Wyn will stay on campus, while Barry, and his wife Alison, will attend Mass at Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago, where they were married and Declan was baptized.

“I think all of us are kind of taking a break away from our normal routine,” Barry said. “Just try to be together and put ourselves in a setting where we can reflect.”

Wyn said she hopes the Notre Dame community will remember her brother’s originality, and strive to emulate his freedom of expression.

“He didn’t care what anyone else thought, he was just going to be himself. Some people can never do that,” she said. “So I think being able to do that and kind of remind the student body about embracing their inner self and letting their personality actually come through is really important.”

Tuesday night Oakland police in riot gear attempted to disperse protesters gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza citing unlawful assembly. During this removal, tensions flared between the Occupy Oakland gathering and police forces.

From the press release given by OPD spokeswoman Cynthia Perkins, “… objects included glass bottles, rocks, pots, pans, kitchen utensils and plates (were thrown) at Police Officers,” during this attempted closure of the encampment. “Police used a limited amount of tear gas for a small area as a defense against protesters who were throwing various objects at Police Officers as they approached the area.”

Reports on Twitter include rubber bullet and bean bag rounds were used against the protesters, while the release report that at time of its publication, only four bean bags and zero rubber bullets were fired.

Over the course of the night, BART services to the 12th Street station was shut down, in addition to freeway exits that could potentially feed into area.

According to photographers on the scene, at least five volleys of tear gas was launched protesters, with one launch being shot at live news broadcasts being filmed.

Various news outlets report that Mayor Jean Quan, who was in Washington D.C. for The United States Conference of Mayors during the entire altercation, is currently en-route back to Oakland to discuss the tactics taken by interim Police Chief Howard Jordan.

The Occupy Oakland twitter feed announced around midnight that they will reconvene Wednesday evening at 6 P.M. at the corners of 14th Street & Broadway, and will be gathering every day after until the plaza is taken back.

Local authorities, as well as law enforcement departments across Texas, are using social networking technology to prevent crime as well as catch criminals.

Bryan Police Department assistant chief of police, Peter Scheets, said Bryan PD uses Facebook to keep tabs on criminal activities. In one instance, the police department was able to apprehend a suspect that had evaded police twice, because he posted the details on Facebook.

Detective Chris Loup, of the Bryan Police Department, who has received training for online social networking security, said that he has also used Facebook to identify a suspect based on information the victim had given him.

Another college town, Waco, has seen an increase in the use of Facebook as both an investigative tool and a way to get important information to the public.

Jim Doak, chief of the Baylor U. Police Department, said Baylor UPD uses Facebook to identify individuals; however, he said he was unable to give details about specific cases.

“[Facebook is] going to be with us as time goes on; we’re working on it and we will eventually get more involved,” Doak said.

Local authorities are also using Facebook as a tool for crime prevention. Bryan PD and College Station PD post tips on how to deter car burglaries and be safe in the city at night, especially  on campus.

“We put crime prevention tips on Facebook and it has been very beneficial for that use.” said Patrick Swanton, public information officer sergeant for Waco Police Department. “We do not have an official page, but eventually we will have a page.”

Swanton said he was unable to comment on whether the Waco Police Department uses Facebook for investigations.

Larger cities, such as San Antonio, are also using Facebook as a tool for investigations.

“A detective that worked in the intelligence unit was looking for a suspect. He was able to track the suspect on Facebook, and, after the suspect posted that he was celebrating his birthday at a club, the detective was able to send officers to apprehend the suspect,” said Matthew Porter, San Antonio public information officer. “We’ll monitor tips that come in, and we’ll use any social network to follow up on them.”

Departments of law enforcement, according to federal statutes for surveillance, need a criminal predicate to search social networks for information on suspects, incidents or witnesses.

“I completely agree with the fact that law enforcement should use any means of information to catch criminals,” said Blanca Guerrero, Texas A&M U. senior communication major. “Websites like Facebook and Twitter are free services. You’re free to put whatever information you want. If you don’t want people to know your business, don’t put it on there.”

According to Facebook’s data policy, Facebook is allowed by law to share information that is posted on the website with law enforcement.

“We may share your information in response to a legal request (like a search warrant, court order or subpoena) if we have a good faith belief that the law requires us to do so,” Facebook’s data policy states. “We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to: detect, prevent and address fraud and other illegal activity; to protect ourselves and you from violations of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities; and to prevent death or imminent bodily harm.”

When asked if she knew about Facebook’s data policy concerning requests of information, Guerrero said she agreed with the policy.

“If [an officer] is trying to do the right thing and capture a criminal, they should do whatever it takes to put that person behind bars,” Guerrero said.

Prosecutors charged Lovette and Demario Atwater with kidnapping and first-degree murder of Carson, a Morehead Scholar and then-student body president of U. North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lovette will appear in Orange County Criminal Superior Court.

Lovette and Atwater were charged with kidnapping Carson, then 22-years-old, from her Chapel Hill home early in the morning March 5, 2008. Investigators said the two men hijacked Carson’s SUV and forced her to withdraw $1,400 from several ATMs. Police said the two men then shot her five times and dumped her body at the intersection of Hillcrest Circle and Hillcrest Road in Chapel Hill.

Lovette was also arrested for the death of a Duke engineering graduate student Abhijit Mahato. Mahato, who was 29-years-old, was shot and killed in his home at the Anderson Apartments near West Campus Jan. 18, 2008.

Lovette faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for both killings. He was 17-years-old at the time of the incidents, so he is ineligible for the death penalty.

Atwater, indicted alongside Lovette, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in September 2010 after pleading guilty to five federal charges related to Carson’s death, including kidnapping and carjacking resulting in death. Atwater avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty.

Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall told the Herald-Sun that he expects the case will go to trial, rather than ending in a plea deal like Atwater’s case.

More than 150,000 flyers have been distributed and more than 5,000 people have participated in searches, and still, there is no answer for the question: Where is Lauren Spierer?

The deafening silence in this investigation has inspired today’s “Shine 4 Lauren” concert, which will symbolically focus light on information that remains unknown.

With the four-month anniversary of Lauren Spierer’s disappearance quickly approaching, the missing student’s parents, Robert and Charlene Spierer, have voiced doubt about the statements made by persons of interest and the theories presented thus far.

One of the most serious discrepancies arose on July 24 when a source told Journal News in Westchester, N.Y., that Lauren Spierer appeared incapacitated while at Smallwood Plaza, allegedly stumbling out of the elevator and resting on the wall for support. The source said Lauren Spierer was then gathered under the arm of a male companion and assisted out of the building.

Yet Carl Salzmann, a lawyer for person of interest Corey Rossman, provided a conflicting account: Lauren Spierer was helping his client walk home after he was punched in the head and allegedly suffered memory loss.

“It’s very convenient to have memory loss in connection with an event like this,” Robert Spierer said.

As the days pass, Robert and Charlene Spierer are growing more and more concerned that theories are being confused with facts.

Lauren Spierer’s parents have also questioned the authenticity of the statement, given their daughter’s size. They said they believe that at 90 pounds and 4’11”, she could not have had the physical strength to carry a man much bigger than herself.

Salzmann essentially opened the door to skeptics and nonbelievers when he later changed his statement to say Spierer and Rossman “helped each other” home that night.

“We don’t believe the story. Clear and simple, we don’t believe it,” Charlene Spierer said.

The Spierers have worked closely with the IU Hillel Center since the initiation of the search and as a Hillel board member, it was brought to my attention that certain
statements should be questioned.

After speaking with the Spierers, I don’t believe some of these theories, either.
I don’t believe that Lauren decided to walk home alone at 4:30 a.m. when she didn’t have her phone, keys or shoes.  How was she supposed to get inside her apartment?

It’s 111 days later, and the story still doesn’t add up.

It is evident that someone is not offering the full truth, and it is clear that one or more persons must come forward.

As fellow members of the IU community, it is our responsibility as peers, friends and neighbors of Lauren Spierer to speak up about the details missing from this case.

The watchword of the Department of Homeland Security is, “If You See Something, Say Something.” Similarly, the Spierers have said “anything small could be big.”

If you overhear something at a party or in class, say something.

If you know someone involved is acting suspiciously, say something.

This investigation simply cannot progress with these limited and cramped facts and testimonies. We must aid law enforcement so they can do their job.

“We can’t rule out anything,” Charlene Spierer said. “That’s the most frustrating thing: There has been nothing ruled out because we don’t have enough information.”

Ultimately, it is not only a question of responsibility; it is also a question of moral
conscience.

As for those who know something, I hope tonight’s concert will inspire you to come forward with the information. Do not allow this search to continue for another 111 days. If not for Lauren, then do it because it is the right thing to do.

Anyone with information on Lauren Spierer’s disappearance can contact the Bloomington Police Department at 812-339-4477 or send an email to helpfindlauren@gmail.com. Anonymous tips can be left at 1-800-274-6388 or P.O. Box 1226, Bloomington, Ind., 47402-1226.

Washington began to cry shortly after the verdict was read and continued to cry until he left the courthouse.

“(Sexual assault) cases are very difficult and it’s hard for victims to come forward,” assisting prosecuting attorney Andrea Hayes said. “I hope this verdict helps other victims to come forward with their stories.”

Washington was accused in June 2010 of entering the victim’s bedroom while she was sleeping and performing digital penetration.

Sexual Abuse Nurse Examiner Christine Vogt testified for the defense and first examined the victim the day after the assault. She said there were no signs of trauma, though on cross-examination she admitted that there are frequently no signs of trauma.

But his defense attorneys claimed this was because what the victim was saying was not the way events took place.

“It is our opinion that this didn’t happen,” lead defense attorney Chris Slusher said during closing arguments.

One of the main questions in the case was if the victim was “lashing out” at the MU athletics department, according to Washington’s attorneys. She and her roommate, Lauren Gavin, tutored with the Total Person Program, which is a tutoring service for student athletes and described the environment as “sexually inappropriate.”

“(TPP) was kind of a free-for-all for those involved in the program,” Hayes said. “There just happened to be two people who thought it was inappropriate and voiced their opinions.”

A lack of evidence also played a role in the defense’s argument.

“There was no hair or fiber collection, no DNA samples and no prints lifted,” Slusher said during the trial.

MU Police Department detective Samuel Easley said it was common in sexual assault cases for no evidence to be taken.

“We didn’t take any evidence simply because there was no evidence to take,” Easley said during his testimony. “We took photographs of (the victim’s) room to show how the layout was, but that’s pretty much all we could take as far as evidence goes.”

Another large issue involved Gavin’s statement to police, which was changed a month after the assault. The defense claimed she changed her statement because she wanted to mend the then-broken friendship with the victim. Gavin admitted she withheld the truth because she was dealing with her own rape case, which was not pursued.

“(Having Lauren testify) was a Catch-22,” Hayes said. “It would have been incredibly key to have her actual testimony from the very beginning, but we had (to overcome) the obstacle that it was provided late.”

Hayes also said that Washington’s status as a football player did not affect the way she handled the case.

“It didn’t matter (to me) that it was Derrick Washington,” she said. “We had a victim who was very credible and a jury who took this case very seriously.”

Washington faces anywhere between one day and seven years in prison. A hearing regarding his appeal will take place at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 7. No date has been set for his sentencing.

Washington is also facing two counts of misdemeanor domestic battery in an unrelated incident. The court trial for that case is set to take place Sept. 30 at 1:30 p.m.

McCowan was taken into custody near McNutt Quad on Saturday after the IU Police Department was notified of his location via police scanner. At the time, Porter County authorities considered McCowan a person of interest in the case.

McCowan was transported to Porter County, questioned and held in the Porter County Jail. He was formally charged with Bach’s murder Monday afternoon.

He is the last known person to have seen Bach alive, according to local authorities. Police described him as Bach’s acquaintance.

Porter County police called Bach’s parents at 3:45 a.m. Friday after finding her car abandoned with a flat tire in a rural drug store parking lot. Her purse was still in the car.

Bach’s parents told police they last saw their daughter at 10 p.m. Thursday and she missed her 1 a.m. curfew.

After local residents and police conducted a search of the area surrounding her abandoned car, they discovered her body Saturday afternoon.

Bach was a 2011 graduate of Portage High School and planned to attend IU-Northwest in spring 2012.

I didn’t know Jason Wren. You didn’t know him either. Jason was a 19-year-old student at U. Kansas. Jason died in March 2009, alone, in a bed at his fraternity house. His autopsy report indicated that Jason had a blood alcohol content level of .362. Jason’s friends put him to bed at 2 a.m. He got up and was walking around until 3 a.m., when he was again put into bed. No witnesses report seeing him again after this. Jason’s friends went to wake him up at 2 p.m. the next day. He was “cold and unresponsive,” according to the autopsy report. The paramedics were called and Jason was pronounced dead at 2:43 p.m. A paramedic reportedly said “it appeared that Mr. Wren had been dead for some time.”

I know Jason Wren. You know Jason Wren. Maybe your Jason went to your high school. Maybe your Jason was in an article like the one I just read. There are hundreds, thousands of Jasons, too many, too often.

When does it matter? When does it hit you, slam you, knock you down, that realization that every breath you take is finite, precious, and can be gone in an instant? It won’t be today. It won’t be after reading my words. It might not be for years. The timing is irrelevant. It’s the knowing that matters. You know that one day your Jason will not just be a figment, a symbol, a young life taken far too soon. He will be the person in the hospital and you will be the person in the waiting room and what you don’t know will be killing you.

This weekend, someone I had just met, someone I knew for only a few short hours, was that person in a hospital bed. I was with a couple of his very best friends in the waiting room. We were having a party for my friend’s almost-birthday. And then we were in the hospital. It only took an instant.

This person I barely knew, let’s call him “D,” had a BAC level very close to the one Jason had. D is fine, but he may not have been. It’s a matter of degrees. D may have become a name, just like Jason, a name used as a warning, a cautionary tale, a sad story. Instead he is alive.

I have a few questions. I’m not sure which ones should be answered. I think I’m afraid to even ask.

Would Jason still be alive if instead of putting him to sleep, his friends had taken him to the hospital? Maybe he just seemed “really drunk,” a state we all recognize and usually categorize as “not a big deal.” Maybe Jason’s friends figured if they had all been drinking the same amount, then probably he would be “fine.” We don’t know. We never will.

What if D hadn’t fallen down the steps? Would we have called the hospital if he was just walking around incoherently? Did falling save his life? Would I maybe have thought he was just “really drunk;” would I have given him some water and been on my way?

How many times should I have called the hospital and I didn’t? On any given weekend night, after a football game, at a huge party/pregame/postgame? How many times should I have gone myself?
We’re all guilty. I’m guilty of having had too much to drink, to the point of being in a very dangerous situation. I’m guilty of putting the people I care about in an emotionally tortured state — ”How could you do that to yourself?” We’re in college and we drink and we drink too much many times and when did we forget that every breath is finite, precious and can be gone in an instant?

I’m mad. I’m mad that people at my apartment didn’t want to involve the police or paramedics. I’m mad that people can look at a boy, bloody and unconscious, sprawled on the steps, and tell me that he’s “fine.” I’m mad at myself. I’m mad that I’ve let my friends walk home alone from a bar, completely “out of it,” because I was completely out of it. I’m mad that my sister has called me and texted me, not knowing where I am, because I didn’t even know where I was. I’m mad that I haven’t yet realized how dangerous and worthless these drunken nights are. I won’t today, I won’t after reading these words, my words. Maybe I won’t for years.

This is not a public service announcement. This is not a warning. This is not a plea. This is a story about a boy, a boy who didn’t make it to see his 20th birthday. This is a story about a boy whose parents will wonder for the rest of their lives, “What if, what if, what if.” This is a story about someone you don’t know. This is a story about someone you do know. This is a story about you.

A group of students were playing soccer on Haggin Field at U. Kentucky when two men took their backpacks, police said. An iPhone was in one of the backpacks, which had the Find My iPhone application installed, and police used the app to track the men.

UK Police caught up to a vehicle on New Circle Road at 7:29 p.m. and preformed a traffic stop. When officers approached the vehicle, they used the app to make the iPhone ring.

UK Police arrested Robert Dobson, 50, of Louisville and the driver of the vehicle, John Lewis, 51, of Lexington.

According to the police report, the men were charged with stealing more than $2,000 worth of items. Police have also connected the two with a theft on Stoll Field on Aug. 23.

Police said Dobson and Lewis used some stolen credit cards from the Stoll Field theft to make purchases at the Liquor Barn Express on North Broadway for $235.60, as well as at a GameStop and Speedway.

Before police arrived, Dobson and Lewis also used some of the credit cards from the Haggin Field backpacks at Liquor Barn Express for another $372.49, the police report said. They also had possession of five cell phones, three wallets and books from the two backpacks.

“They were arrested and taken to the Fayette County Detention Center,” UK Police Chief Joe Monroe said.

Both men are charged with fraudulent use of a credit card, theft by unlawful taking and tampering with physical evidence, with additional charges pending.

Lewis was also charged with operating on a suspended driver’s license.

Monroe said he thought the case was pretty much solved within 30 minutes.

He said all students should put a tracking application on their phones, so it will help police locate them.

According to a trajectory estimate as of Thursday, Hurricane Irene will make landfall Saturday along the coast and move inland, said Ryan Ellis, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Raleigh. The Triangle can expect to see at least a half inch of rain, although the amount can change significantly if the storm’s path changes as little as a few miles east or west.

Due to Irene, Gov. Bev Perdue declared a state of emergency Thursday for counties east of I-95 while some coastal areas faced mandatory evacuations. President Barack Obama later signed an emergency declaration in North Carolina, which orders federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts to Irene’s expected damage.

“Pray for the best, prepare for the worst,” Perdue said at a press briefing Thursday. “That’s what we do in North Carolina.”

The storm, which hit the Bahamas on Thursday as a Category 3, may strengthen to a Category 4 or 5 over warm waters in the Atlantic, Ellis said. It will most likely be Category 3 or 4 when it reaches the Carolina coast, with winds between 111 and 155 miles per hour.

On campus, upperclassmen were be permitted to move in one day early—Thursday as opposed to Friday—to avoid traveling in poor weather, Vice President of Student Affairs Larry Moneta wrote in an email to students Tuesday.

In an email to The Chronicle Wednesday, Moneta added that administrators made the decision not long before sending out the message to the student body.

“I’m not in a position to comment on either weather predictions nor how safe folks will be traveling,” Moneta said. “I do encourage everyone who is traveling over the weekend to keep a close eye on conditions and take every prediction to be safe.”

Sophomore Amanda Griffis wrote in an email Thursday that she plans to move in early as an extra precaution. She originally planned to travel with her family by car from Florida but has now decided to take the train.

“We know better than to fully trust hurricane path predictions,” Griffis said. “Hurricane Jeanne was supposed to veer away from Florida… Instead, it did a full loop and came directly at us, taking our roof off while we were inside.”

Durham County Emergency Management is primarily preparing for heavy rain and strong winds from Irene, Mark Shell, an emergency management coordinator for the group, said. Though the topography of the Triangle area makes flooding a minimal concern, fallen trees and power lines could be a potential hazard for residents.

“We have very scripted plans as to how we prioritize handling damage to essential infrastructure,” Shell said. “Loss of power in facilities like hospitals will get attention first.”

In particular, the state or county may declare a state of emergency and implement a curfew to keep residents from traveling outside, Shell noted. The most recent state of emergency declaration came during a snow storm in 2000, he added.

Hurricane Irene will be the second natural phenomenon to leave its mark this week.

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck Virginia Tuesday and caused tremors along the East Coast, including the Triangle area.

Despite reports of sporadic tremors shortly before 2 p.m. Tuesday, there were no reported injuries or property damage on or near campus, said Kyle Cavanaugh, vice president for human resources and emergency coordinator for the University.

Caroline Rourk, administrative director of the occupational medicine toxicology program at the Duke University Medical Center, said she felt her fourth floor office on Erwin Road shake for about one minute at 1:55 p.m. Tuesday.

“Everything just started moving. You could feel the building swaying side to side,” Rourk said. “I have never been in an earthquake, so everything was crazy for a second. Luckily, it didn’t last that long though.”

Sgt. Don Stone, Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman,  said the investigation could last up to 7 to 10 more days and was confident the investigation would lead to an arrest.

“We have physical evidence. We have people that have been beaten, and we have a medical report,” Stone said. “If the evidence supports the allegations made against these four individuals – the football players – or anyone else that may come up, someone will be charged.”

The four LSU players connected with the incident met with investigators Tuesday morning, but none were arrested, according to BRPD.

Senior quarterback Jordan Jefferson, freshman wide receiver Jarvis Landry, sophomore linebacker Josh Johns and sophomore offensive lineman Chris Davenport all met with police downtown, received their Miranda rights and gave statements about the altercation.

Stone said up to 12 additional witnesses, including more LSU football players, will be asked to speak with investigators soon.

“The four football players were there providing us with some additional information and additional persons to talk to,” Stone said. “Some of those are LSU football players.”

BRPD Chief of Police Dewayne White said the department has received contradicting stories between the two parties, which has slowed the process.

“We have conflicting statements that support one version over the version of the LSU players,” White said. “What we don’t have is a version of an objective third party that has absolutely no ties to either party involved in this incident.”

BRPD obtained security camera footage from a business near Shady’s, but told reporters it did not capture the event on tape. White declined to elaborate on what the footage showed.

White said the injuries to one victim included three broken vertebrae and another suffered contusions on the head, nose and both his left and right hand.

White dispelled the rumor that the incident stemmed from a racial slur.

LSU coach Les Miles said the team will continue to aid police in the investigation.

“We certainly want to do justice to any ongoing investigation and make sure our team understands the severity of the issue,” Miles said. “I think there is a lot of work that they need to do and a number of people they need to interview.”

Miles also said if he had “fundamentally defined” information on the issue, he would enforce his own punishments on players.

Nathan Fisher, an attorney representing the four players, said the questioning lasted between two and three hours, and called the meeting “congenial.”

“Everybody was courteous. We’re going to continue talking to people and find evidence,” Fisher said. “We’ll be glad to share that with the city police. We’re not holding back anything.”

At 1:51 p.m. Tuesday afternoon a tremor shot through campus after a preliminary 5.9 magnitude earthquake in central Virginia hit about 40 miles northwest of Richmond and 150 miles northeast of Raleigh. NCSU Campus Police said there were no damages reported as of 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Residents of North Carolina could feel the effects of the earthquake for the next six hours or so according to the National Weather Service.

Karl Wegman, an assistant professor in atmospheric sciences at NCSU, does not think students need to be concerned for their safety. He said earthquakes of this magnitude are very uncommon on the east coast and that when they do happen they tend to be felt over a broad region but with little damages.

“I’d be pretty surprised if there was any structural damage or injuries in North Carolina. There will definitely be some aftershocks, but they are not likely to cause damage,” Wegman said.

Direct information about the earthquake can be found through the U.S. Geological Survey.

Comments on Twitter showed the tremors extended as far north as Toronto. The White House and the Pentagon were evacuated due to safety concerns.

“An earthquake of this size is very large. In the grand scheme of things … it is expected to see some damage close in,” Mervyn Kowalsky, NCSU structural engineering professor and seismic design expert, said.

According to Kowalsky, the nature of this tremor, an interplate earthquake, is a mystery to many seismologists and is tough to predict and track. Unlike earthquakes that occur on the boundaries of tectonic plates, like those in the Pacific, east coast earthquakes occur within the North American plate.

Additionally, the type of soil on the east coast affects the impact scale.

“The east coast earthquakes are felt over a larger distance since the soil is softer,” Kowalsky said. “This softer soil allows waves to move out [further].”

Christine DiPietro, a 2009 NCSU alumna, felt the impact of the quake while at work in Washington, D.C.

“My computer started shaking and I thought there was a dump truck under the building,” DiPietro said.

DiPietro said she went under a doorway during the event. She said her phone service was out for 45 minutes and neighboring offices evacuated their buildings.

No one on campus was injured in the earthquake and there was no apparent damage to any AU buildings, according to emails from the University.

The earthquake, centered in Mineral, Va., started around 1:51 p.m. and lasted less than a minute.

Academic buildings surrounding the Quad were evacuated almost immediately with alarms and building personnel where necessary, Maralee Csellar of University Communications said. Most students were evacuated from AU’s buildings about 20 minutes after the earthquake hit as 40 Facilities Management staff searched the buildings to make sure they were structurally sound.

At 2:47 p.m., not long after a 2.6 aftershock hit D.C., the University sent an email asking everyone in AU buildings to evacuate for safety purposes. Most buildings were cleared for re-entry at 3:21 p.m. All buildings on main campus and in Tenleytown were deemed safe for re-entry by 4:30 p.m.

Students think quake is stampede, trucks and more

Adam White, an AU freshman in the School of International Service, was on the 6th floor of Anderson Hall when he felt vibrations under his feet. He didn’t believe it was an earthquake at first and thought it was a stampede of people on the floor below.

“I actually got kind of annoyed about it,” White said. “Then we realized that this was much more serious.”

White is not the only one that didn’t jump to the earthquake conclusion at first. Kent Hiebel, an AU junior in the School of Public Affairs, was coming out of a meeting in Mary Graydon Center at the time. Hiebel thought the vibrations felt similar to the sensations bass amps make during concerts in the Tavern.

In the Letts-Anderson quad, AU sophomore Michael Johnson briefly thought a truck was causing the shaking.

“It was like you were sitting in a vibrating chair, like one of those massage chairs,” Johnson said.

Allie Cannington, a sophomore at AU, and her mother were putting a bookshelf on top of her desk when she and her mother joked that she was glad they weren’t in their home state of California where there might be an earthquake. Less than 30 seconds later, they felt the ground shaking.

“We thought that we were actually going crazy,” Cannington said.

Cannington uses a wheelchair, and she was impressed when a Public Safety officer showed up at her door minutes after the earthquake to make sure she was alright.

“That is major props to AU,” Cannington said. “I was so impressed.”

There was a similar air of disbelief and confusion in the Davenport Coffee Lounge, says AU sophomore Georgia Ottoni.

“I think it’s funny how people are embarrassed to say, ‘Did you feel that,’ like they’re insane,” Ottoni said. “It’d look like it only happened to them.”

On the other hand, AU freshman Lydia Siguidson felt nothing and did not know an earthquake had happened. This isn’t the first time she’s missed out on experiencing an earthquake — she didn’t feel one in her hometown a few years back.

“I’m an earthquake failure,” Siguidson said with a laugh.

Martina Ferrari, an AU first-year graduate student, wasn’t sure what to do when she first felt the earthquake at her home downtown. After a moment of indecision, she ran out into the street to find all of her neighbors in the same predicament.

“It was my first time in a true earthquake, so I just froze,” Ferrari said.

AU sophomore Tya Scott had a similar reaction as some of her belongings fell off their shelves in her Leonard Hall room on the 6th floor. Like many other students, she went on Facebook after the building stopped shaking.

“I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Scott said. “I freaked. I was scared.”

University evaluates earthquake procedures

The University is currently reviewing what worked and what didn’t following evacuation and inspection, and changes to procedures will be made if administration officials feel they are necessary, Csellar said.

To make up for the delay between the aftershock and the campus-wide email, the University used the website, Facebook and Twitter to warn students, faculty and staff, Csellar said.

“I want to thank the entire community for your patient and calm response to the evacuations and disruptions in normal activity while we assessed our facilities,” AU President Neil Kerwin wrote in a message to the University community.

Kerwin also reminded AU that University has a preparedness plan, which advises the community to take cover under sturdy objects or stay in wide, open spaces in case of an earthquake.

News reports indicate Bustamente died of an apparent self-inflicted gun wound.

The woman has been identified as 22-year-old Katy Benoit, of Boise. She was a psychology graduate student at U. Idaho this semester. She was found dead near the UI campus around 9 p.m. Monday night. KTVB reported police have confirmed she is from the Boise area.

Bustamente was listed as an associate professor of psychology and communications on the university’s website. The webpage containing that information has been taken down.

One comment describing Bustamente on the popular website RateMyProfessor.com had said, “No doubt, bustamante is HOT. Also walking the line between genius and insanity. He’s totally nuts but knows his sh*t. He is easily distracted and can drone on about one subject forever. When I took the class it was pretty easy and I learned a lot but I’ve heard it’s sometimes really hard depending on his mood.I’d recommend it-his TA’s were cute too.”

Our View: The Department of Education has stepped up enforcement of its sexual assault policies for universities. It’s about time.

In April, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to university officials across the country, clarifying the requirements of current gender non-discrimination laws in respect to universities’ sexual assault policies. This letter did not change the existing policy; it simply explained exactly how they expected the policy to be applied. Some universities scrambled to make changes to bring their aging sexual assault policies in line with these expectations.

The points in this letter, and the policy changes inspired by them, have since come under fire. The efficacy and fairness of the Department of Education’s policy is the subject for another debate. A debate that must be had, yes, but not by critiquing the department for finally enforcing its own requirements.

Sexual assault is an epidemic. The headlines have been filled with incidents of sexual assault at respected universities, controversial because of the slowness and impotency of the administrative response under policies too long unchanged. Nearly 20 percent of women and 6 percent of men will be victims of sexual assault during their time at college, according to a federally funded research organization, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. For women, that’s nearly one in four.

On top of that, sexual assaults are vastly under-reported nationwide, according to the research and evaluation arm of the Department of Justice. And the World Health Organization has reported that victims are significantly more likely to suffer academically, to experience depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, to abuse alcohol and drugs, and to contemplate suicide.

In light of the seriousness of this trend, it’s contemptible that the Department of Education has gone so long without such a clarification and renewed enforcement. Universities are doing the long-overdo right thing, and it’s unfortunate that commentators have taken this as an opportunity to attack those universities and the department.

These policies require universities to inform victims of their rights and to educate faculty, staff and students about prevention and reporting. They mandate that the system be in place, and readily accessible, for pursuing administrative proceedings against accused attackers. These are incredibly important features, and ones that should not be taken for granted. If there are problems with specific features of the policy, surely we can find better ways to discuss them than by taking aim at the entire list of essential and beneficial requirements.

We’re proud of U. Oklahoma’s recent changes to the statute of limitations on sexual assault. It’s a move that strengthens the university’s overall sexual assault policy and shows OU’s commitment to preventing sexual violence. It’s about time the rest of the nation’s universities caught up.

BPD officers, assisted by FBI agents, IU police officers and a search expert from Team Adam, which is from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,  –  up to 30 law enforcement personal in all — started the search around 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Planning for this search began during the first days after Lauren’s June 3 disappearance, BPD Captain Joe Qualters said in a press release.

Dumpsters in the area of 11th Street and College Avenue, the last place Lauren was seen, were searched immediately after she was reported missing.

During the week of June 6, police contacted the waste collection companies who provide services to that area, and it was determined that all Bloomington waste is moved to a transfer station south of Bloomington and to Sycamore Ridge Landfill in Pimento, Qualters said.

Pimento is around 12 miles south of Terre Haute.

The waste taken from Bloomington at that time was identified and Republic Services, the company that operates the landfill, isolated and secured that area of the landfill. No further waste was dumped in the area.

While preparations for the landfill search were being made, the BPD decided to allow the land search effort to continue, Qualters said.

Thousands of volunteers and professional searchers combed through Bloomington in the weeks after Lauren’s disappearance. Meanwhile, the BPD was formalizing a plan that included determining how many personnel would be needed for the landfill search, what agencies would be involved and what tools would be required.

Additionally, logistics including restroom facilities, shelter, food, water and daily transportation had to be considered, Qualters said.

Once the plan was finalized, officials decided to start the search during the week of August 15. The area being searched is approximately 70 feet by 120 feet by 20 feet, and the search effort may take up to two weeks of 12-hour days, Qualters said.

Back in Bloomington, Lauren’s parents, Charlene and Robert, released a statement asking for volunteers to assist in putting up new missing person posters around town on Sunday, August 28.

Posters and tape will be distributed at the location of the old search headquarters in front of Copper Cup next to Smallwood Plaza between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

“As the summer comes to a close we are still waiting for answers which will lead us to Lauren,” Charlene Spierer said.

Bloomington police were unavailable for comment on the alleged video footage.

The source told the Journal News that Spierer appeared to be incapacitated and was helped by a male individual out of the Smallwood apartment complex during the early morning hours of June 3 when she was last seen.

“She comes stumbling out of the elevator, trips several times toward the corner of the lobby where she comes to rest, falls to her knees and leans against the wall for support until a male companion comes to her aid, gathers her under his arm and escorts her out of the front of the building,” the source told The Journal News. “That whole sequence lasts less than 60 seconds.”

The source contradicts statements by Corey Rossman’s lawyer, Carl Salzmann, who said Spierer helped his client get home because Rossman had been knocked out in an altercation.

“As for this idea that she was Florence Nightingale and taking him back because she was concerned, she wasn’t in any condition to take care of herself, let alone another human being,” the source said, according to the Journal News.

Lauren Spierer was last seen on video at about 2:45 a.m. during the early morning of June 3 after a night out.

She was last reported to have been seen walking home at the corner of 11th Street and College Avenue at around 4:30 a.m. Spierer’s apartment is at Smallwood Plaza, a short walk away from where she was last reported to have been seen.

The Journal News also published excerpts of an expletive-filled Facebook exchange between a Journal News reporter and Lauren’s boyfriend, Jesse Wolff, in which he claims to have taken a polygraph test.

Wolff seemed to imply he passed the test, although he would not confirm who had administered the test.

Wolff cursed the press in general and the reporter in the exchange.

He also said, “I tell the police everything because they can actually help.”

Lauren’s mother, Charlene Spierer, also issued a statement  July 21, 50 days after her daughter went missing.

In the statement, she said she was heartbroken over the disappearance of her daughter and her life was transformed into a nightmare.

“It’s as if our lives before June 3 never happened,” Charlene wrote.

Charlene expressed the continued hope that her family will find out what happened to Lauren.

“As you wake every morning, the nightmare begins again,” she wrote. “You cannot give in. You cannot give up hope. Every day, you think this could be the day and every day I believe that with all my heart,”

In addition, she wrote she had learned a lot during the past 50 days about how to deal with the media, about using social networking sites as tools in the search and about how to manage her thoughts to avoid the emotional agony that accompanies her daughter’s disappearance.

But she also said she had learned some things that are much darker.

“I’ve learned there lurks an evil. A cruel, heartless element that cares more about themselves than the life of my daughter. That this element of humanity exists in the world is beyond comprehension,” she wrote.

She then directly addressed those responsible for Lauren’s disappearance.

“Your silence is deafening. Your lack of compassion is reprehensible. Your lack of respect for another human being which allows you to go day-by-day, watching is unimaginable.

“Everyone is put on this earth for a purpose. Everyone has a defining moment. In the blink of an eye, Lauren disappeared. Do not let this be your defining moment.”

She pleaded with whomever is responsible to come forward, asking, “What are you waiting for?”

At a press conference this morning, BPD Lt. of Detectives Bill Parker said Lauren was hanging out with friends Thursday night, June 2. They were drinking at Kilroy’s Sports, a bar on the intersection of Eighth and Walnut streets, according to friends’ testimonies and Kilroy’s cameras.

Lauren left Sports with a friend at 2:30 or 2:40 a.m. She left behind her cell phone and shoes, Parker said. The items are in police custody. Lauren likely left her shoes because there is a fenced-in beach and sand area at the bar.

The two walked to Lauren’s apartment complex, Smallwood Plaza, but video cameras show she did not enter her apartment. The friends stayed inside the complex for a short time and then headed north to another friend’s apartment.

The two met up with friends at an apartment complex on the corner of 11th and Morton streets. Police found a small purse and keys that belong to Lauren along this route. Parker said he thinks Lauren left the items on the way to the apartment complex.

The two went into one apartment, then to another apartment a few doors down to hang out with some friends.

Around 4:30 a.m. Lauren told her friends she felt like heading home to Smallwood. A male friend watched Lauren leave the apartment. He saw her last on the corner of 11th Street and College Avenue, he told police. That male friend was the last person to see Lauren, Parker said.

Police are interviewing everyone Lauren was known to hang out with that night. Parker said police are focusing on about 10 people of interest, but they have no official suspects.

Parker said police are focusing on the areas Lauren visited early Friday morning. They are using K-9 units to search between the two apartment complexes. They have no leads to other counties, he said.

Foul play is possible, Parker said. He added that he has no reason to believe this case is connected to the September disappearance and murder of local resident Crystal Grubb.

The other searches around Bloomington and surrounding areas will continue, as organized by the Spierers and IU Hillel Center, police said. Volunteers can meet each day in front of Smallwood at 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to search.

Parker held up a sign with Lauren’s picture and said that although she has naturally blonde hair, her hair color could have been altered if she was abducted.

The BPD has received hundreds of tips and has put a system in place to process them, Parker said, adding that the department would follow up the tips locally and call on the FBI if tips have a national scope.

Lauren’s parents, Robert and Charlene Spierer, stood together at the press conference. Charlene wrapped her arm around her husband as Parker spoke. After the police statement, Robert walked to the microphones. He thanked local law enforcement, the Bloomington community, family and friends for their support.

“We ask that if anyone saw Lauren, with anyone, please share that information. It doesn’t matter how small it is,” he said. “Every little bit we get is important.”

Then he spoke about his daughter.

“Lauren is a child and person that is full of life, always on the go, fun to be with, and with a large circle of friends,” he said. “She’s very close to her mother. She spoke to her mother every day.”

Charlene stood behind her husband and bowed her head.

“We need everything we can get,” he said. “We are continuing in earnest every day. We are not going to give up. And that’s all I have to say.”

She just finished her sophomore year at Indiana U. Spierer studies fashion merchandising and was a University Division scholar.

She planned to stay in Bloomington for part of this summer to take a course at Ivy Tech before starting an internship at the clothing store Anthropologie in New York City. Her parents and older sister live in New York.

Spierer is a white female, 4 feet 11 inches tall, slender build, has blue eyes and long blonde hair.

Spierer was last seen walking south on College Avenue from 11th Street on her way back to her apartment in Smallwood Plaza, located on College Avenue.

She did not arrive to her apartment and video footage does not show her entering the apartment complex.

Spierer was wearing a white tank top with a loose, light colored button shirt over it and full length black stretch pants. She was not wearing shoes.

According to her mother, Spierer has a life-threatening heart condition called Long QT Syndrome. Spierer’s mother has asked that if anyone knows where her daughter is, to please take her to the hospital.

Police officers have searched the area several times, including a search with a police K-9 unit. They have also spoken with businesses, construction crews and residents in the area.

According to the Hillel Center’s website, volunteers will meet at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 6 at Smallwood Plaza to search for Spierer. Volunteers are needed.

Flyers have been distributed all across the IU campus as well as Bloomington. Anyone with information about Lauren Spierer should call BPD at 812-339-4477.

Dairy science junior Nicole Nelsen’s leg was crushed by a cow, tearing ligaments and damaging blood vessels, while taking an artificial insemination class at the Bull Test Unit in November 2010.

Nelsen is now suing Cal Poly to help cover her medical expenses and ensure the safety of facilities is improved for other students, her legal counsel Daniel O’Neill said.

Nelsen was in a breeding shed inseminating a cow when another cow passed through several open gates before breaking down the door to the shed and pinning Nelsen’s leg against the metal bars of the shed, O’Neill said. Without the help of several nearby students, Nelsen’s knee might have needed to be amputated, O’Neill said.

“She had to have surgeries to repair the arteries and reconstruct her knee,” O’Neill said.

Nelsen is suing for negligence and compensation for medical expenses stemming from her surgeries and physical therapy.

In addition to costing her money, Nelsen’s injury brought her education to a halt, O’Neill said.

“She always wanted to be a veterinarian, and since this has happened, it’s been very hard for her to be around large animals,” O’Neill said.

Nelsen is currently resting at home after another surgery to help her leg recover.

But accidents in the world of agriculture are just a part of the job, said one dairy science junior who asked to remain anonymous because of how the lawsuit has affected the college.

“It’s an unfortunate situation all the way around,” the student said. “Nobody likes to have it, but it’s agriculture. Accidents happen all the time in agriculture.”

The student said Cal Poly’s agriculture facilities are aging and in need of improvement, but finances make it hard.

“With budget cuts, we’re doing the best we can with what we have,” the student said.

Stacia Momburg, Cal Poly public affairs team leader, said school officials could not comment because the school has yet to be served with the papers. Momburg said the school also does not comment on pending litigation.

Animal science professor Mike Hall, who is in charge of the Bull Test Unit, said the artificial insemination class (AI), known as an “enterprise project,” is part of Cal Poly’s Learn By Doing curriculum. The animal science department produces students with experience in the field by offering them enterprise project instead of just lectures.

“We have a very high acceptance rate of our animal science students getting accepted to veterinarian school, and the reason for that is our enterprise projects,” Hall said.

The artificial insemination enterprise project is essential in helping students learn the process of breeding cows, Hall said.

“AI is not something you can learn out of a textbook,” Hall said. “You have to practice, and that’s what Nicole was doing — she was practicing.”

Safety is always a concern during this practice, Hall said. The class meets once a week for lectures that cover what the students will do with the animals and animal safety.

When students are working with the animals, Hall said he ensures they don’t “spook” the cows.

“We try to do everything to keep the animals as calm as possible,” Hall said.

Nelsen’s injury is the first of its kind in the 37 years that Hall has worked in the Bull Test Unit area, he said. At the same time, students work with large animals that could potentially be dangerous.

“We work in a very high-risk type of area,” Hall said.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for northwestern Cleveland County at about 5:30 p.m., which prompted Norman’s tornado sirens to activate. The storm brought high winds and rain, but the National Weather Research Center would not confirm if a tornado touched down in Norman when contacted because it was currently covering other storms across the state. The Norman Police Department was contacted to assess city damages, but it did not immediately respond to phone calls from The Daily.

There was no immediate, visible damage to the city, but there were pieces of insulation in the Lloyd Noble Center parking lot and near the National Weather Center.

Housing and Food takes care of students

Students, faculty and Norman residents used the basements of Couch and Walker towers to take shelter during Tuesday’s severe weather storm and tornado warning.

Joseph Schmidt, public relations senior, was one of about 50 people who used the basement for safety.

“OU Housing and Food Services did a great job,” Schmidt said. “They let us know in advance when to take shelter, they kept calm, they got everyone together.”

Lena Tenney, history junior, said Housing and Food Services passed out water and provided everyone fans while they waited out the storm.

“Nobody was freaking out,” Tenney said. “Everyone stayed very calm.”

Norman Residents take shelter at Lloyd Noble Center

Christa Wilkerson, a Norman resident for 3 years, said her friends were trying to put new windshield blades on her car when Norman’s tornado sirens started going off. Wilkerson had her pet with her and picked up friends who were sleeping to seek shelter. They found Lloyd Noble Center’s gymnasium open to protect them from the storm.

Once the storm hit, not much happened, Wilkerson said.

“I just heard a lot of hail,” Wilkerson said.

However, Wilkerson’s friend, Shannon Griffin, has only been in Oklahoma since May 1, when she moved from South Carolina. She said her experience with the storm — even though a tornado didn’t hit the center — was different than Wilkerson’s. The whole experience was different, Griffin said.

“I was scared shitless,” Griffin said.

Governor’s office releases statement

Gov. Mary Fallin released a statement Tuesday in regard to the severe weather and tornadoes that damaged parts of Oklahoma.

“It is obvious the State of Oklahoma has experienced a large tornado outbreak today,” Fallin said in a press release. “I know local authorities are doing everything they can to respond to the storm and keep our citizens safe.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those already affected by these storms.”

Fallin also said Oklahomans need to keep themselves informed of severe weather issues and to take necessary precautions.

“It’s amazing to create something that has real-world application,” Farid said as he stepped away from a computer screen displaying complex code.

Since the advent of the Internet, the distribution of child pornography has exploded, according to Farid.

“It used to be that if you wanted this material you had to go to the seedy part of town,” he said. “There was a huge obstacle and barrier to entry if you will. Now of course it’s much easier, and with demand comes supply, of course.”

Although PhotoDNA cost Microsoft millions of dollars to develop, the company donated the software to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for free in 2009, Farid said. NCMEC has since been contacted by law enforcement officials worldwide expressing interest in the program, and NCMEC plans to administer PhotoDNA to companies that request the software for free, Ernie Allen, Chief Executive Officer of NCMEC, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

Microsoft — which currently uses PhotoDNA in the programs Bing, SkyDrive and Hotmail — hopes that Facebook’s use of the software will pressure other major web services to follow suit, according to Farid.

“I think it would probably be a little grandiose to think [PhotoDNA] will eradicate [the distribution of child pornography on the Internet],” Allen said. “I think it’s going to send a message to the child pornographers and to the pedophiles that the online world is going to become a hostile place to them.”

The software will help locate thousands of pictures of children, and will hold individuals who are using the Internet for child pornography responsible for their actions, Allen said.

Once images containing child pornography are interdicted by PhotoDNA, the issue needs to be addressed from both a policy and legal standpoint, Farid said.

If an online company using PhotoDNA, such as Facebook, discovers an illegal image, it must report the photo to law enforcement officials. The government already receives more reports of child pornography than it can logistically investigate and the deployment of PhotoDNA will likely inundate law enforcers with exponentially more reports, Farid said.

Beyond reporting images of child pornography to government officials, the action that other online companies take is an internal decision, he said.

Although any company that decides to use PhotoDNA is given all pertinent information regarding how to use the program to identify sexual offenders, Microsoft decided to keep the fundamental technology “as confidential as possible” so as to prevent criminals from discovering a way to evade PhotoDNA, Farid said.

The photos that PhotoDNA identify are “the worst of the worst,” Allen said. These “crime scene photos,” are of prepubescent children under the age of 12 being violently sexually abused, according to Allen.

The software is remarkably accurate, Farid said. At Microsoft, 1 billion images have been scanned and not a single false positive was found, he said.

PhotoDNA circumvents various problems regarding the identification of offensive photos by meeting three criteria, according to Farid. PhotoDNA first extracts a signature that does not change as the image is compressed or altered. Second, no two images share the same signature. Third, the signature takes only four milliseconds to compute, which means that a single computer can extract 20 million signatures per day, he said.

The number of images of child pornography that PhotoDNA has identified so far leads Allen to believe that the sharing of such images is a much greater problem than initially expected, he said.

Before Farid was commissioned to develop his software, the U.S. Department of Justice asked major technology companies including Microsoft, Google, AOL, Earthlink and Yahoo! to develop a solution to address the flow of child pornography circulating on the Internet, according to Farid. These companies banded together to form the Technology Coalition, he said.

“They would dutifully meet in Washington once or twice a week for a few years and do nothing — absolutely nothing,” Farid said. “They kept talking about how hard this problem is.”

The coalition struggled to differentiate between acceptable photos and those containing sexual abuse without obstructing the efficiency of Internet programs, Farid said.

The Microsoft team, then headed by Tim Cranton, had read an article in The New York Times that featured Farid’s work in digital forensics. Cranton. eager to enlist the help of a professional well-versed in photo identification technology, invited Farid to a coalition meeting in Washington, D.C., in early 2008, Farid said.

Before Farid joined the team, the Coalition had been unable to develop software capable of scanning the billions of photos that are uploaded to the Internet each day, Farid said.

Farid proposed that the coalition use images in the NCMEC database to eliminate the redistribution of those same photos. The database currently holds 50 million images of child pornography and adds 250,000 each week, according to its website. Because photos are copied and redistributed to hundreds of computers, the identification of one photo as a match to a photo in the database could incriminate hundreds of individuals, Farid said.

“My idea was, don’t try to go after things you haven’t seen before — go after the things you have seen before,” Farid said. “Go after the images that you know are child porn, that you know are horrible, that you know who the victims are and that you know people keep trafficking.”

Celebrities and local bands alike are putting together benefit shows in order to raise money for the ongoing relief efforts in the communities affected by the tornados. The Crimson White has a run down of who will be holding these shows and where to buy tickets.

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift will open her last rehearsal for her Speak Now tour to her fans on May 21 at 6:00 p.m. The rehearsal will be held at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. According to her website Swift, who has never opened a rehearsal to anyone, felt that she needed to do whatever she could to help the victims.

The tickets will cost $50 and are available right now through Ticketmaster. Everyone who attends will also get a free shirt. Swift has also opened up a donation page on her website for any fans who are not able to attend but would like to give to the tornado victims.

Kenny Chesney

Kenny Chesney announced last week that instead of canceling his May 25 show at The Tuscaloosa Amphitheater in light of the recent tornado, he will donate his concert fees to relief efforts. The exact amount that will be donated has not been released yet, but according to The Tuscaloosa News, artists like Chesney often receive six-figure salaries for concerts.

Tickets are still available for the May 25 show that starts at 7:30 p.m for $99. They can be purchased at The Tuscaloosa Amphitheater box office or through ticketmaster.com.

Bama Rising

Country music stars will come together on Tuesday, June 14 at the BJCC Arena to put on a benefit show for Birmingham and all of the surrounding areas affected. All of the proceeds made from the concert will go to The Bama Rising Fund, which was established through the Community Foundation for Greater Birmingham after the tornados hit.

The line up includes some of the biggest names in country music: Alabama, Dierks Bentley, Sheryl Crow, Little Big Town, Darius Rucker and many more. Tickets will range from $25 to $150 and go on sale this Friday, May 20 at 11 a.m. For more information about the line up or where to buy tickets go to bamarising.org.

Roll Tide Relief Benefit

The Roll Tide Relief Benefit started after a group of eight Tuscaloosa residents got together to try and put on a benefit show featuring local artists. The show, which will take place on June 3 from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. will feature more than 50 local bands will play at five locations around Tuscaloosa.

The minimum amount to attend the shows will be $10 but donations will be accepted all night. The line up of where each band will be playing will be announced sometime during the weekend of May 20. For more information visit rtrpromotions.webs.com.

The governor’s office said in a press release that these 34 counties appeared to be the most severely impacted by weather-related damage, but that more could be added to the emergency declaration in the future.

This is one of the steps required for a county or other local government to seek financial assistance. Monroe county declared a state of emergency last week, the first step required to receive state assistance.

For a county to receive emergency federal assistance, the state in which it’s located must declare a state of emergency for the county.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development closed the northbound and southbound outside lanes of River Road between North Third Street and State Capitol Drive to pump out water caused from seepage, according to a Governor’s Office news release.

In addition, DOTD is continuing to monitor Scenic Highway south of U.S. 190, River Road south of Brightside, U.S. 61 near Thompson Creek and U.S. 190 at the base of the Mississippi River Bridge in East Baton Rouge Parish for possible seepage, though the roads remain open at this time, according to the release.

William White, LEM Emergency Preparedness Specialist with the Mayor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said the biggest threat to the Parish right now is seepage.

He said the threat of seepage will continue as the river remains at its 45 foot crest for seven to 10 days.

In addition to seepage, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and the National Guard are monitoring the levees for possible weak points caused by the added pressure from high river levels, White said.

White said the lowest levee point in Baton Rouge was 47.3 feet, but has been extended to 50 feet with the installation of Tiger Dams — easing concerns for overtopping.

On campus, the University is continuing to monitor seepage and sand boils, particularly in areas west of Nicholson Drive, according to a news release the University issued Monday.

The season might provide a welcome distraction, though.

“I think they’re two different things and I think we should look at them that way,” he said. “The season will be a lot of fun, and it will be an escape for a lot of people who have had a lot of heartbreak, through what they’ve been through with this storm, but we’ll still be supporting, rebuilding and trying to help those who need it.”

Saban made the comments during the special radio broadcast of “Hey Coach Helping Out,” from Bryant-Denny Stadium on Monday. The fundraiser asked Crimson Tide fans to donate to UA’s Acts of Kindness Fund and other organizations involved in relief following the April 27 tornado.

It came a night after Saban, more than 30 players and several other Alabama coaches and school officials attended the memorial service for junior tackle Aaron Douglas at Cokesbury United Methodist Church’s Epworth Hall in Knoxville, Tenn. The 21-year-old was found dead last Thursday morning in Fernandina Beach, Fla., where authorities are still investigating the cause of death.

“We’ve never, ever lost a player the whole time I’ve been coaching,” Saban said. “When you lose your parents you’re an orphan. When your husband dies you’re a widow, or your wife dies you’re a widower. There’s no word when your child dies.”

Although the football team was essentially given May off, and most players have headed home before the start of summer workouts, more than 30 drove up for the service. Also in attendance were former Tennessee coaches Phillip Fulmer and John Majors, and numerous other former teammates as Douglas won a starting job as a freshman with the Volunteers before transferring to Arizona Western College.

“These things we’re talking about are about people,” Saban continued. “It has nothing to do with where you went to school or who you’re rooting for, how much passion you have when the game starts. It has nothing to do with that, it’s about people and doing the right thing to support people regardless.

“Having great rivalries, there’s nothing wrong with that either, but this is a great opportunity to keep those in perspective and keep them on the field.”

Others participating in the radio show were Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox, men’s basketball coach Anthony Grant and gymnastics coach Sarah Patterson, who recently won her fifth national championship.

Cleanup from the storm is expected to take months, if not years, to complete.

“Everything makes a difference,” athletic director Mal Moore said.

All University related activities are schedule to remain as usual, though officials are preparing for possible emergency, according to a University news release.

University officials are advising people on campus to be aware of seepage, according to the release.

East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Kip Holden is also warning residents of “ponding water” during the next three weeks, according to a Mayor’s Office news release.

The release advised residents seeing sand boils or other concerns near levees to report the incident by calling (225) 389-2100.

The state Senate is now debating a bill that would impose more punishment on gun traffickers in the wake of the state House’s voting against legislation that would have eased restrictions on gun carrying.

“We got the most votes we’ve ever got in the history of Illinois,” said state Rep. Brandon Phelps (D-Harrisburg), who introduced House Bill 148.

The bill would have allowed individuals to apply for permits to carry firearms concealed, provided the individual is older than 21, holds a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification Card and has taken training classes. It failed to clear the state House by a vote of 65-32-1, narrowly missing the 71-vote margin.

Phelps said he was not surprised by the results but nonetheless was disappointed.

“Criminals are always going to have guns, and we’re just going to be more at their mercy,” he said.

Illinois and Wisconsin are the only two states that do not allow concealed carry. Washington, D.C. also has the same restriction in place. State Rep. Rich Brauer (R-Springfield) said the law has reduced crime rates in other states.

“If there would have been a problem, they would have made it illegal in their states,” Brauer said.

Banning concealed carry goes against the Second Amendment and infringes on citizens’ constitutional rights, he added.

On the contrary, the Illinois Council against Handgun Violence welcomed Thursday’s results.

“We’ll go against the trend as long as we can,” said Colleen Daley, executive director at the council.

She said the council’s studies do not show concealed carry reduces gun violence. State Rep. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston), who voted against the bill, agrees putting more guns in the community is not the solution.

“By definition, the easier to carry guns, the more opportunities people will have to shoot each other,” Biss said. “The huge percentage of gunshot deaths and injuries in this country are not incurred by criminals the victim doesn’t know but rather people who are in the same families, in the neighborhood where people know one another.”

Biss acknowledged illegal gun possession is a huge problem in Illinois. He introduced a bill on May 4 that would revoke the registration of vehicles used in gun trafficking crimes.

“It basically gives law enforcement officers one more tool to deal with gun traffickers,” Biss said.

Currently, Illinois punishes individuals involved in gun trafficking, but Biss said the new bill would suspend the registration of vehicles involved in gunrunning — the illegal transport of three or more firearms. Biss said he is confident the bill will pass. However, he acknowledged gun trafficking is a complex problem that needs multiple solutions.

“Nothing works by itself,” he said. “What we need to do is to have simultaneously a network of all sorts of pressure on people and a robust toolkit given to our law enforcement officials. This is just one small arrow.”

Evanston Police Cmdr. Tom Guenther declined to comment on either bill but said the department would follow what is passed in the legislature.

Northwestern students are divided over the issue of concealed carry. Medill freshman Shayna Starr said the bill would help to protect citizens against gun violence.

“If someone is constantly put in danger, then having a concealed weapon is a means of protection and should be allowed,” Starr said.

But Weinberg freshman Sabrina Koval said the bill would only increase the number of shootings she frequently heard about growing up in Chicago.

“If guns are illegal now and that’s how bad it is, more people are going to resort to gun violence to solve their problems (if concealed carry passes),” Koval said.

This analysis determined, of the 379 U.S. cities reviewed, which had the lowest and highest risk for being affected by disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, drought and hail.

Following Corvallis, Mt. Vernon-Anacortes, Wash. is in the number two spot and Bellingham, Wash. is ranked third. The next highest ranked Oregon city is Salem, as the seventh safest in the nation.

The West Coast has been known to be more vulnerable to earthquakes, as opposed to the Midwest, which suffers from tornadoes, or the East Coast, which withstands hurricanes every year.

While the honor may make some breathe a sigh of relief, one expert believes the analysis may have been too lenient in there assessment of threats from Mother Nature.

“In my view, the New York Times downplayed the threat from earthquakes,” said Robert Yeats, professor of geology in the geosciences department at Oregon State University. “Seattle got high marks even though there is a proven active fault running through downtown Seattle that had a large earthquake less than 1,000 years ago, accompanied by a tsunami that struck the Magnolia Heights area.”

According to the data posted from the New York Times, “Risks for twisters and hurricanes are based on historical data showing where storms occurred, (and) earthquake risks are based on United States Geological Survey assessments and take into account the relative infrequency of quakes, compared with weather events and floods.”

This research was conducted following events such as the disastrous storms in the South and the deadly earthquake in Japan, which reportedly killed more than 18,000 people with nearly 12,000 still determined missing.

Yeats said Corvallis was not the only city included in the survey that may have been incorrectly ranked for safety.

“In addition, suburbs Kent and Auburn have volcanic hazard from mudflows from Mt. Ranier, the most recent occurring 500 years ago,” said Yeats. “The survey also gave high marks to Bellingham, Mt. Vernon and Salem, all at similar risk from quakes, when in fact Salem was damaged by an earthquake in 1993.”

On the New York Times website, the data results are displayed on a map of the United States, with green dots representing cities with lower risk of hazards, and red dots indicating the cities with the highest risk.

Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas, was ranked the most dangerous city to live in the United States, followed by Jonesboro, Ark., Corpus Christi, Texas, and Houston, Texas. Texas rounded out with five cities in the top eight most dangerous.

Yeats fears the high marks for safety may give community members a false sense of security, possibly hindering emergency preparedness.

“I regard the survey as irresponsible, hampering efforts of emergency managers to make this a safer place to live,” said Yeats.

His car was vandalized and his house was egged. His tires were slashed and his mailbox was broken. He is almost always, coincidentally of course, randomly stopped at airport security, and almost every time he hosts a party with his group of male, Muslim friends, he notices others staring.

“All of my neighbors think I’m a terrorist,” he said. “It looks like my house is this base for terrorism.”

Soltan was born in Egypt and moved to the U.S. when he was 10 or 11 years old, he said.

Now a fifth-year in economics, Soltan said he was relieved to learn of Osama bin Laden’s death on May 1 and thinks it is going to be a safer world.

“It’s a glorious, momentous day that he’s gone and we’ve finally cut off the head of the snake,” he said. “Now we have to work together to defeat terrorism.”

Soltan does not consider bin Laden a Muslim leader. Instead, he agrees with President Barack Obama, and considers him a mass murderer of Muslims.

Although some in the world associate all Muslims with the terrorist, it’s not an accurate depiction, he said.

“Osama bin Laden represents one billion Muslims, and I don’t think he shared the views of 0.1 percent,” Soltan said.

Jana Al-Akhras, a Muslim and first-year in international studies, was born in the U.S. but considers herself Palestinian. She agrees that many Americans have an inaccurate perception of bin Laden’s association with Muslims.

People should be smart enough to separate one man from an entire place, she said.

“I don’t consider him the face of the Middle East, the religions there or the people,” she said. “There is such a miniscule minority that believes in what he has said.”

Al-Akhras felt mixed emotions over the announcement, she said. While she said she doesn’t feel comfortable celebrating death, she is relieved that someone who hijacked the country is dead.

She said she hopes his capture and death will be an incentive for the U.S. to step out of Afghanistan.

“People have suffered enough,” she said. “This is one of the longest and most costly wars.”

The Afghan people have especially suffered, she added. Although Americans have been affected, thousands of Afghans continue to endure violence.

“They’re in constant fear and their economy is shot,” she said.

Lina Al-Khatib, a Muslim and first-year in journalism, has also lived in the U.S. her entire life and was born to Palestinian parents, she said. While she shared the sentiment of relief over bin Laden’s death, she said it’s important to think about what’s next.

“He was just a figurehead,” she said. “He wasn’t the whole war on terrorism. There’s more to it.”

“We’ve pretty much become a nationwide organization at this point,” said Warren Tidwell, an Auburn resident and organizer of the Facebook group.

Among the states already signed up and organized to send supplies are Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Maine. Groups were called to action and organized through the popular social media sites Facebook and Twitter.

“Wednesday night at 8 p.m. I got online and started the group, which was of course inspired by the act of Alabama fans. It was so classy of them to raise money. I had hoped for a big response, but I had no idea it would be as big as it’s been. It’s gotten really crazy.”

Alabama fans raised $50,000 after word that Auburn’s beloved Toomer’s oak trees had been poisoned. The check was presented to the Toomer’s Trees and Tradition Fund March 25.

Tidwell said the reason he originally focused on Tuscaloosa was because he had no idea of the extent of the storms’ impact on the state.

“We had no idea it was our worst hit ever,” Tidwell said. “So now, we’ve gotten to a lot of the affected areas with supplies, water, food, tents and tarps. We’re actually about to transition into a large warehouse to work out of as a home base.”

The volunteers have been working out of the Five Points Baptist Church in Northport, but Tidwell said they’ve outgrown the church’s gymnasium. The church will be the volunteers’ home base until later in the week. Toomers for Tuscaloosa, however, will still be accepting donations through the church’s website: www.fivepointsbaptist.com/tornado.

“That website is where we are accepting donations that are going directly to the victims throughout the state,” Tidwell said. “We are helping in Tuscaloosa, but we’re spreading the donations throughout the state.”

Helping smaller towns hit hard by the storms is something Tidwell is most concerned with because he’s had experience with relief efforts after natural disasters and knows how easily they can be forgotten.

“I worked in a forgotten area in Mississippi (after Katrina), and the last thing I wanted was for the rest of the state to feel like we forgotten them because of Tuscaloosa,” Tidwell said. “We got into communities today where people hadn’t eaten in three days. We delivered diapers to areas today where babies were in the same diaper for days or were wrapped in T-shirts or whatever they had.”

So far, Tidwell said it’s been hard getting help from federal agencies because of red tape.

“The Red Cross is coming to us for needs,” Tidwell said. “We’re sending stuff to Temporary Emergency Services. We’re getting far more stuff out into the community and out into the state of Alabama than the Red Cross, FEMA or any federal agency at this point.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love the Red Cross, and they do wonderful work around the world, but in the initial aftermath of a disaster, we don’t need red tape. We’re cutting through the red tape and getting stuff into the people’s hands. When people bring stuff to us, we don’t tell them that we don’t have approval for that, or we don’t have anywhere to put that, or don’t bring that. We tell them to bring it, and we’ll figure it out.”

And people have been giving. He said he’s lost track of the number of cars, trucks and tractor-trailers of donations that have showed up at the church, not to mention the monetary donations given through the church website.

“The money we’re spending is coming directly from donations to the church,” Tidwell said. “The money that is donated is being immediately used. You’re looking at somebody at the disaster site going out and getting whatever we need. There’s no bureaucracy, there’s no red tape, and there’s no power struggle. It’s simply people helping people and us doing whatever we have to do to get this stuff done.”

Through the support of hundreds of volunteers, Tidwell and his crew have been able to ship food and supplies to places from Alberta City to Hackleburg. Donations are brought to the church and sent to those in the most need. People use the Facebook page to ask for help and responses are almost instantaneous.

“You can’t beat putting a request out on Facebook or Twitter and getting it responded to in five minutes,” Tidwell said. “There’s no way we couldn’t have done this without social media and the Auburn Family.

“This is a grassroots effort from average Americans from every walk of life, and I honestly believe this will revolutionize relief efforts in the future.”

For now, Tidwell is hoping people will stay interested and keep donating because he says the relief effort is a marathon.

“We will need volunteers for a long time. We’re going to need supplies for a long time. We’re talking about months of recovery around the state. This will not be a few weeks of donations; I need dedicated people who want to work with us.”

Tidwell and his wife are Auburn residents. He returned to school and finished his classes at Southern Union two years ago with plans to continue at Auburn. He left his job to coordinate the relief effort and has been offered a job in Opelika whenever he returns to the area.

“Sometimes you have to go out on a limb,” Tidwell said.

Those interested in volunteering or donating can find opportunities through the Facebook page by searching for Toomers for Tuscaloosa or via Twitter @Toomers4Ttown. Volunteers can also call Tidwell at 334-444-9100.

The University of Iowa junior, who is studying abroad in Seville, Spain, said she streamed Obama’s speech online after she saw the news on Facebook and Twitter.

The next morning, Schoop, 20, began to receive e-mails from the U.S. Embassy about travel warnings for Americans abroad, she said.

“I am definitely nervous now to be traveling back to the States, especially now since I will be by myself,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Schoop is studying with Cultural Experience Abroad, and she said the organization sent an e-mail to students, making sure they don’t participate in any demonstrations. The e-mail also said participants should “try not to ‘appear’ American.”

“I have been keeping up with all of the news and hope that all will be safe as I journey back to America in two weeks,” she said.

Meanwhile, officials emphasized the safety of the more than 300 UI students abroad is their top concern as the world reactions to the death of the Al Qaeda leader.

Even before the latest foreign-policy frenzy, UI Office of Study Abroad had started planning to expand its system for tracking students studying in other countries, said John Rogers, an assistant director of the office. The change comes on the wake of natural disasters in Japan and prolonged political unrest in the Middle East.

The current system keeps record of where students are studying, the dates of their programs, and a photocopy passports, he said.

Rogers said only students participating in UI study-abroad programs have been required to send the information, but now it’s becoming required of UI students traveling through other programs.

The U.S. Department of State travel advisories are always forwarded to students in other countries, Rogers said, and one was sent out Monday after bin Laden’s death.

The message included a note advising UI students to keep a low profile and avoid large crowds, he said. He said the Study Abroad Office has not received any indications of any UI student being in danger or expressing concerns about safety.

Rogers said the joint effort between the Study Abroad Office and UI administration is to ensure officials can contact students overseas in the event of an emergency.

No UI students are in Pakistan or Afghanistan because a United States travel warning prohibits the university from sending students to the area, Rogers said.

Alison Kiss, executive director of Security on Campus, a national organization that works to prevent criminal violence on college campuses, compared the time following bin Laden’s death as the time immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and said students should work to be informed about the political state of the country in which they plan to spend time.

“Many times for students, it’s their first time leaving the country,” she said. “Imagine [a high risk] added to that.”

But not all UI students who are studying abroad said they are worried about their safety.

UI junior Joe Moriarty, who’s studying in Cork, Ireland, said he is not concerned about anything bad happening during his travels.

He said he is confident about his safety because of increased safety precautions in the area after bin Laden’s death.

“If anything, I’d say people back home have more to worry about than anyone in Ireland, or Europe for that matter,” the 20-year-old said in a Facebook message.

The fires began at 11:42 p.m., Sunday, according to Morgantown Fire Department Chief Mark Caravasos.

Celebrations could be heard throughout city streets early Monday morning, Hundreds of students stood near burning couches, mattresses and trash on fire near campus late Sunday night and into the early morning hours on Monday following President Barack Obama’s speech detailing the Al Qaida leader’s demise.

Caravasos said at times firefighters were delayed to certain areas of the city due to large crowds of people celebrating in the streets. Several fires caused minor damage to the asphalt on the roads, he said.

WVU spokeswoman Becky Lofstead said that most of the fires occurred in the areas surrounding the campus.

“(The first responders) did their jobs admirably considering the spontaneity of the news,” she said. “They do a great job responding to those situations.”

The majority of fires occurred in the Sunnyside neighborhood and High Street areas of Morgantown. Hundreds of students chanted and cheered near the intersection of High and Willey Streets early Monday morning for hours.

“People were feeling very patriotic last night and responding to the moment,” Lofstead said. “For the most part, students were not participating in destructive activity. It’s usually a small group of participants that partake in (destructive activity).”

University Police Chief Bob Roberts said University Police made two arrests on alcohol-related charges. An underage, intoxicated male hit the window of a University police car as it drove by, while another intoxicated individual had “burning material” in his hand, Roberts said.

“I understand why people are celebrating; it’s been almost 11 years,” he said. “People were compliant and cooperative. We had no issues really.”

Roberts also said the Morgantown City Police made no arrests last night.

Lofstead said the University was working in coordination with the Morgantown Police and Fire Departments to identify any students cited for setting fires or not cooperating with first responders. Photos and videos are being reviewed to identify any additional individuals.

“We will work to identify those students, and then they could be disciplined through the University judicial process,” Lofstead said. “They could also face additional consequences through the law.”

Interim Dean of Students Corey Farris said WVU should have everything it needs within the next few days to move forward with the judicial process on any students who were cited.

WVU will receive the police reports from either University Police or Morgantown Police. Once it gets that information, it will determine the type of student conduct allegations. Faculty, staff and students sit on the conduct panels and hear perspectives from all parties involved.

According to Farris, a punishment for an offense such as underage consumption would likely involve alcohol counseling, while destructive behavior such as a fire can result in suspension or expulsion from the school.

“Whether a student is celebrating because of a big win or the death of Osama bin Laden, I don’t know if it has any different effect on the punishment,” Farris said. “Students were celebrating and reacting.”

On its Web site, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) lists 10 primary factors in determining the severity, magnitude and impact of a disaster event, including the amount and type of damage, the impact on the infrastructure of affected areas or critical facilities, imminent threats to public health and safety and dispersion or concentration of the damage.

“NOAA was in town yesterday measuring and taking measurements on the disaster to put into whatever category it should go into,” said FEMA spokesperson Tim Tyson.

Tyson said that FEMA follows the Stafford Act, which tells FEMA exactly how to respond to a disaster. He said the magnitude of the disaster only dictates the size of the response, not how it is coordinated.

“We would have responded the in the same nature if this was an F-1 tornado,” he said. “It’s going to be the same response, but [the category] determines the scope of the response.”

Bentley said the fatality count for Alabama is up to 250, while another 1,700 are injured. In Tuscaloosa alone, as of Sunday evening, 39 were confirmed dead, 1,000 were injured and 455 were missing.

Following the revelation that the iPhone was tracking users’ locations, Android users discovered last week that their phones were tracking their locations as well. Android users brought a lawsuit against Google, after a group of iPhone users had done the same. A little over a week ago, iPhone users found a location-tracking application in an unencrypted file in the backup directory of the iPhone 4. The data tracked the iPhone’s location using imprecise longitudes and latitudes. This discovery provoked a firestorm of debate with netizens as well as internationallawsuits over privacy violations.

In an attempt to clear up the controversy, Apple released a Q&A about the location-tracking device stating that it was not, in fact, collecting users’ location data, but rather crowd-sourcing Wi-Fi hotspots. The fact that the phone has been shown to collect over a year’s data is a bug in the system that will be fixed in later updates, the company said.

Many iPhone owners in the NYU community seem satisfied with this explanation.
“I really don’t think it matters,” CAS junior Vivian Xia said. “If they are just using it to help users get better Wi-Fi, that’s fine.”

Meanwhile, Aneline Amalathas, who currently owns a iPhone 3, said that it is suspicious that Apple should react so drastically to complaints from irate customers.

“I think it’s a little fishy that they would decide to roll out an update just because something like this was discovered,” she said. “I mean, what do you need a year’s data for? And isn’t that a pretty big bug in the system if you really don’t need that much data? I personally don’t think that I’m worth paying attention to in the grand scheme of things.”

Stern IT Professor Aninyda Ghose, meanwhile, said that debates about violations of privacy are irrelevant in the digital age.

“My own personal opinion is that we have near zero privacy anyway in today’s world,” he said. “Just be aware of this, and move on. In other words, to me, online privacy is just a seven-letter word.”

“There were people stuck under debris and yelling for help,” University of Alabama student Adam Melton said. “We went over and helped as many as we could. It’s just, everything has been completely demolished. The houses are gone, the business are gone. It’s something that I’ll never be able to forget.”

The University reported no structural damage campus.  Most damage occurred southeast of campus.

As of Thursday evening, 37 were confirmed dead in Tuscaloosa, while the death count of the entire state of Alabama has increased to 204, with nearly 100 more in surrounding areas. The University confirmed two of the deaths were students.

President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency in Alabama. Obama plans to visit Tuscaloosa on Friday.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said Wednesday that search and rescue was the city’s main priority, which was why cleaning up the damage has yet to begin.

“We are in an urgent phase of search and rescue,” Maddox said. “This going to be a very, very long process. The amount of damage that is done is beyond a nightmare.”

Much of the city remains without power or cable as of Thursday evening while rescue efforts take first priority.

Gas stations inside the city with power were swamped with traffic Wednesday night and Thursday. As of Thursday afternoon, few gas stations still had fuel left.

Soon after the tornado hit on Wednesday, the University converted the Student Recreation Center into a refuge for students who needed a safe place to stay overnight.

On Thursday, the Student Rec Center also became an information center the University encouraged students or parents to contact for answers about the status of loved ones.

The University canceled school for the semester. For each class, students can choose to take exams at a later date or accept their current grade without a final. The University’s May graduation commencement, originally scheduled for May 7, has been postponed to August 6.

“These steps are being taken to allow students impacted by the storms to return to their homes while recovery efforts continue in the Tuscaloosa area,” a UA press release said.

The Arizona House of Representatives had previously approved the measure in a 33-to-24 vote. The bill, designated as Senate Bill 1467, would have allowed firearms to be carried in the open or concealed in places like campus sidewalks, but not into classrooms. Brewer’s signature was required for the bill to become law, but she called it “poorly written” in her official veto statement.

The Associated Students of the University of Arizona, the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the Faculty Senate all passed resolutions opposing the proposed legislation.

GPSC President Emily Connally said that Brewer made the “right move” by vetoing the bill. Connally explained that the bill contained many flaws, such as a lack of description as to what a public right of way actually was and the fact that the newly written bill did not require constituents to have a concealed weapon permit.

“In all reality, someone could have shot a gun for the very first time on campus,” she said.

More than 150 graduate and professional students told Connally that they called the governor asking to veto the bill or lobbied against the bill at the state capitol in Phoenix. According to Connally, five graduate students told her that they supported the bill.

“She’s right that the bill crossed the line, and (Brewer) made the right decision.” Connally added.

In Brewer’s official statement explaining her veto, she said the bill did not define public rights of way and could have been interpreted to apply to K-12 schools as well as to universities and community colleges.

ASUA President Emily Fritze said that she was “very happy” the governor chose to veto the measure because it showed that she listened to many of her constituents, including the state universities, students and faculty members who expressed concern. Fritze said the veto also showed that student and faculty efforts did not go to waste because organizing, lobbying and being involved in the political process helped in some way.

Elma Delic, board chair of the Arizona Students’ Association, said that although ASA did not take an official stance on the bill, all of the student governments across the state were opposed to it.

“I’m happy that the governor listened to student voice and opinions across the state,” Delic said.

Updyke said he arrived at the gas station between his 1:30 p.m. court appearance and 2 p.m. Updyke told police he thinks more than one person assaulted him, and he never saw them.

Updyke was treated at East Alabama Medical Center and said he was punched in the face and received several small abrasions and scratches.

After receiving treatment, Updyke said he went back to Tiger Express to see if they had surveillance video of the incident.

Updyke said he is interested in seeking prosecution for the people who attacked him if they can be identified.

Glennon Threatt, Updyke’s lawyer, called the Paul Finebaum show after the incident.

“Somewhere right outside of Opelika, Harvey stopped at a gas station to get a drink and some gas, and when he got out of his car, it went black,” Threatt said. “He woke up on the ground. He had been hit in the head with something, so he wandered into the gas station in pain, and they directed him to a local emergency room. He responded to that emergency room. He has got facial bruises and a split in his brow.”

Updyke didn’t require stitches, Threatt said.

According to Threatt, a Montgomery news station received a phone call saying Updyke had been stabbed, so a reporter in the area went to East Alabama Medical Center and saw Updyke bleeding.

Threatt said he believes the person who assaulted Updyke was the person who called the television station.

Threatt said he was not with Updyke during the incident.

“I had nothing to do with my client getting assaulted in a gas station in Opelika,” Threatt said. “If I was involved in it, I would have arranged to be there.”

Fan Mai, a graduate student in the department of sociology, explained that a hook-up culture involves physical contact as the primary means of interaction.

“‘Introduction to Sociology’ compares hook up culture to dating,” Mai said. “Sex used to be very institutionalized — we had sex only in the confines of marriage — but now it’s acceptable in dating. We’re moving away to a totally individual approach: you make your own decisions because it’s your body.”

As a teaching assistant for “Sociology of the Family” in 2008, Mai assigned her students a project in which they initiated a survey of University students to gauge hook-up behavior and opinions.

“We were looking at intimate relationships and questioned whether the hook-up culture damages the caring culture,” Mai said. “We asked: ‘Is there a detachment of intimate feeling from physical intimacy? Is there less caring or does hooking up mean freedom, expression, and is it just a college thing?’ There’s a big question mark.”

The question mark leads to a greater debate within academia.

“There are people saying hooking up is empowerment of women, and it used to be that only bad girls could express themselves; now, it’s more socially acceptable for anyone to be able to please themselves,” Mai said. “The other side says, ‘Wait a minute: there’s a gender double-standard. Both sexes can hook up, but if girls do it too much it can damage reputations. For girls it’s a walk of shame, but for guys it’s a walk of pride.”

Mai said college is the environment associated with hook-up culture because this behavior depends on surroundings.

“There’s a peer pressure out there, and generally people feel that their peers and friends are doing more hooking up than they do,” she said. “So, people think, ‘I should be more open to this. I’m out of place. Maybe I’m not using all of my college time?’ Everyone thinks college is the perfect time and place for sexual experiment.”

After college, however, Mai said those who embrace the hook-up culture still will move on to more committed relationships.

First-year College student Kristie Jones said she observes this type of hook-up culture at the University, where a skewed female-to-male ratio means “a lot of great catches are really willing to just hook up with boys and not expect a date out of it.” As a result, boys do not have to ask girls on dates because they get what they want regardless, she said.

First-year College student Jon Torre offered a similar assessment and said he feels no pressure to ask girls out.

“Asking girls out on physical dates is more rare here than I thought, and it’s because a lot of people seem centered only on hooking up,” Torre said. “There’s even a thought here that you can have an emotional connection and sexual connection, but never actually have to be in a relationship because there’s an area between just hook up buddies and dating — friends with benefits.”

Fourth-year College student Devin Underhill said he thinks of the hook-up culture as a loud minority.

“You can find a hook-up culture here if you want, and it’s very easy to do so, and I think people emphasize the existence of a hook-up culture because we don’t have a strong singles culture or relationship culture,” Underhill said. “It’s the absence of others that kind of put this emphasis on hooking up, but I think all three groups do exist.”

For Torre and Jones, both first years, this hook-up culture extends throughout the University but thrives in dorms and on fraternity dance floors.

“It’s definitely more convenient that there are 100 girls living in the same building as 100 guys, and it definitely leads to more sexual activity than probably would occur otherwise,” Torre said.
Jones’s personal version of a hook-up is “the dance floor makeout.”

“I can definitely see this being more prevalent in Greek life or just Greek parties in general where you aren’t necessarily Greek,” she said.

Ultimately, however, the results of the Mai’s study, which heavily rely on first-year female respondents, cite the discrepancy between conceptions and reality as the perpetuating force of the hook up culture.

According to the survey, 58 percent of students believe peers had three to six hook-ups last semester, but only 22.5 percent actually demonstrated this behavior. Mai believes these findings reveal the peer pressure that leads students to hook up as an attempt to equal their peers.

The survey also shows that students not only overplay the hook up culture, but also prefer relationships to it. Indeed, about 83 percent of participants prefer serious relationships to random hook-ups.

Jones corroborates this finding, admitting she is disappointed by the University’s dating practices.

“Coming into college I heard all the rumors about ‘sexiling,’ so I did expect that, but I also thought there would be way more relationships going on,” she said. “Now I just see that first and second years are really just hooking up.”

The hook-up culture stunts the actual point of relationships and merely gives an outlet for people where they think there are no consequences, Jones said.

“I was talking to my friend about this the other day, and we realized we’re just not made like that,” she said. “You have so many emotions and when you’re just hooking up with somebody, especially for girls, that’s not really all you’re doing because you do make such an emotional connection.”

Mai contends that this gendered nature of hooking up has dangerous implications.

“Young women can be really manipulated by the belief [that sex is empowerment and way to express themselves], but hook-up culture is actually better for men and mostly not good for women,” Mai said. “Not so many relationships come out of hooking up, even though people think it’s an efficient, low-cost way to meet new people.”

Torre hopes that for this reason, his peers recognize the benefits of serious relationships.

“It’s not necessarily always good to be afraid of legitimate commitment, and once we leave this place it’s going to be considerably more difficult to find your match, so people should at some point begin to take relationships more seriously,” he said.

Underhill is in a relationship and believes students do think more critically about relationships as upperclassmen.

“When I came here I had really high expectations, since both my parents met the first night of college; I thought I was going to find the person I was going to be with for the rest of my life,” Underhill said. “When I realized that wasn’t necessarily going to play out, I decided I’m going to have as much fun as I can until I figure out what I really want.”

Throughout his first year, Underhill still was questioning his sexuality; so, he hooked up with both men and women until he decided he was not getting much out of that behavior. By his second year, Underhill was openly gay.

“The summer before my third year was when I got comfortable with myself, and that’s when I met my current boyfriend,” Underhill said.

While Underhill distanced himself from the hook-up culture after committing to his boyfriend, he observes that the end of third year is a time for decision making: either go the relationship route or realize there is only “a little bit of time left here, and then go more toward crazy hook ups that don’t mean that much,” he said. “The majority of people I know go the relationship route toward the end.”

Overall, Underhill thinks hooking up is only really a problem when people settle for a hook up even though they really want a relationship.

To combat the issue of hook up culture destroying healthy relationships, fourth-year College student Maria Pluta founded a contracted independent organization called Off the Hook.

“Off the Hook’s main purpose is to educate and to foster a community on Grounds, and its main target is to consider the hook-up culture in more ways than just physical safe sex,” Pluta said. “I get a lot of news about how to make sure we are physically safe in our relationships, but there’s not as much attention to emotional safety.”

The main concern Pluta sees is the inherent instability of hook-up-based relationships.

“The average conversation of girls, whether it’s in a Christian girl’s house, or a sorority house, or on a Friday night on the Corner or in a library, generally is that relationships formed through the hook-up culture are not sustainable and are not practiced in a way that is emotionally supportive,” she said. “Part and parcel with this more critical eye toward the hook-up culture is the consideration of a more stable dating culture, especially one deliberately focused toward marriage.”

Pluta attests that the point of Off the Hook is not to promote marrying as soon as possible; rather, the group wants to ensure a community ethos exists that will support, rather than stifle, familial aspirations. Currently, the CIO wants to form a better idea of its chief purpose and decide whether it will be geared toward member education or community outreach.

“The biggest take-away for this group as an educational group is that especially because the hook-up culture is so close to the heart, its message can’t just be one you pass along from the class room or lecture standpoint,” Pluta said. “We’d never put up flyers saying, “Hook-up culture is bad!’ because that’s not going to affect anyone’s heart or engage them in an important way. The group is trying to prepare people to be in one-on-one conversations where they can engage critically.”

Off the Hook collaborates with the Love and Fidelity Network, a group seeking to identify college groups with similar missions, and the two groups co-hosted a conference this semester. Pluta wrote an article featured on the site in which she details her qualms against the hook-up culture.

Writing about Off the Hook, she said, “We have a vision for the future in which all persons’ actions are oriented toward a sustainable and flourishing good life.”

Whether an active participant in the hook up culture or a proponent of emotionally driven relationships, what’s clear is that students and academics alike are discussing hook-up culture frequently and in a variety of settings.

As Underhill put it, “I’ve been in Sustained Dialogue all four years and the hook up culture has come up at least once every year. Every year I learn a different side to it and see how many different communities have different takes on it.”

But what seemed like a typical story of an overheated campus culture clash took an unusual turn after emails among the MSU’s membership surfaced indicating that the Irvine disruptions were carefully coordinated by the group to prevent the ambassador from speaking—a premeditated plan that involved staggered disruptions by predetermined individuals with cue cards, all directed via text messages. In light of this evidence, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas convened an investigatory grand jury and then leveled charges against the so-called “Irvine 11,” bringing the campus controversy into the California courts. Arraigned this past Friday, the students each pled not guilty to misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and disturbance of a meeting.

To understand why this prosecution is justified, and indeed similar future prosecutions of campus disruptors are warranted, one must first understand what this prosecution is not.

It is decidedly not an “absolute affront to the Constitution” that will “inhibit the free exchange of ideas,” as Dan Stormer and Jacqueline Goodman, two of the Irvine defense attorneys, have claimed. It is their clients who sought to inhibit the free exchange of ideas by shouting down Oren’s speech, preventing him and the estimated crowd of 500-700 individuals from exercising their rights to free speech and assembly.

In fact, when viewed through the lens of pragmatism rather than partisanship, the prosecution of these disruptors clearly protects our civil discourse. Imagine, for contrast, a campus climate in which it is possible for any sufficiently motivated group to shut down an event to which it is ideologically opposed. Not only would Ambassador Oren and General Petraeus be shouted off the stage, but Nancy Pelosi would be accosted with cries of “baby killer,” while Omar Barghouti, who spoke recently at Harvard to advocate boycott of Israel, could be met with jeers of “terrorist” and “anti-semite.” It is essential for the preservation of considered campus conversation that such suppressive “speech” never be tolerated, no matter the opinion being espoused. Simply put, no partisan should have a vocal veto over the marketplace of ideas.

Beyond the practical necessity of such prosecution, there is also strong legal justification for it. As Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA, a renowned free speech expert explains, “California law rightly makes it a crime to interfere with people’s rights to speak, and listeners’ rights to listen.” Volokh is a long-time equal opportunity advocate for First Amendment rights, having defended flag-burning, anti-Israel bus advertisements and even the permissibility of voluntarily-assumed Sharia arbitration on U.S. soil. To him, the Irvine case is not an example of individuals exercising free speech but rather attempting to stifle it. “Of course, the defendants have their own free speech rights,” he says. “They could have freely exercised them outside the meeting. They could have exercised them during Q&A … They could have exercised them by staging their own event. But First Amendment law has long recognized that there’s no right to speak so loudly that it interferes with other people’s activity.”

Countering a misconception, Volokh adds that “while a jail term is theoretically available” if the defendants are found guilty, “it will be highly unlikely for first offenders.” Rather, “in a case such as this, the defendants …  will be fined, put on probation, and possibly sentenced to some community service.” And that, he concludes, “sounds like about the right punishment.”

Of course, prosecution is a last resort only to be employed when students themselves are unable to respect the opinions of others and the rights of their fellow students. Ideally, even the most impassioned groups would choose to engage in dialogue rather than diatribe. But for those partisan purists not dissuaded by the pragmatic and legal consequences of Irvine-esque conduct, there remains one final objection to such tactics: they don’t work. At Georgetown, the ejection of anti-war protesters was met with sustained applause and the disruptions were condemned across the campus political spectrum. At UC-Irvine, the student group responsible was suspended, and the administration left angry and embarrassed. These reactions are unsurprising: the arrogance of those who seek to override the free speech prerogatives of others alienates rather than attracts people to their cause. The assumption that one’s viewpoint is so self-evidently correct that the rights of others can be trampled to trumpet it proves predictably counterproductive, as self-righteousness so often does. Student groups interested in actual influence ought to take note and save their objections for the Q&A.

Too often, we forget that freedom of speech is largely about silence. The dignity of discourse in America stems not merely from the right of each individual to speak freely, but from those who might vehemently disagree making space for that person to express themselves. Our universities ought to be models for this mutually respectful conversation, not where it is in constant danger. With that in mind, let us make the Irvine prosecution into a teaching moment about the nature of our nation’s most fundamental freedoms. And let us be reminded what we owe each other as Americans, even—or especially—in the confines of our college campuses.

The national campaign aims to educate students on how to prevent and report sexual assault, file sexual assault complaints, assist victims, and pursue disciplinary action against students accused of sexual assault, according to a Department of Education press release.

Also spearheaded by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the campaign will support Title IX — the federal law that prohibits sexual discrimination, violence, and harassment in schools. The campaign will send letters to schools and universities outlining their obligations to educate students on sexual assault under Title IX, according to the press release.

Nationwide, at least one in four college women will be sexually assaulted during her academic career, according to 2010 statistics from the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault. At least 80 percent of all sexual assaults are committed by an acquaintance of the victim, according to the same statistics.

Locally, two female students have reported being sexually assaulted — one off-campus and one in an on-campus residence hall — in the past week and a half, according to police reports. In 2009, police received 16 reports of forcible sex offenses on- and off-campus, according to statistics provided by Penn State under the Clery Act.

Director of the Center for Women Students at Penn State Peggy Lorah said sexual assault is an ongoing problem, so the vice president’s announcement was a step in the right direction.

“I think Joe Biden is just continuing a lifetime of advocating for women who have been victims of violence,” Lorah said. “Here at Penn State, it’s something students deal with often … Every year there are students who are victims of sexual assault and don’t come forward. It’s a problem on any campus.”

To Karin Foley, chair of Penn State’s Commission for Women, educational measures are an “important piece of any program.” Still, Foley said she doesn’t think that alone would prevent sexual assault altogether.

Penn State currently offers several programs aimed at curbing sexual assault — including the 865-WALK security escort service, self-defense classes, counseling services and others — university spokeswoman Jill Shockey said.

Even with these in place, Shockey said it’s still important that all students look out for one another.

“Of course sexual assault is not just a crime against women. There are male victims as well,” Shockey said. “Men and women both need to be aware of the risks and look out for each other.”

By making data more readily available to research groups, the writers of the Notice of Proposed Rule Making claim the amendment would facilitate states’ abilities “to evaluate education programs, build upon what works and discard what does not, increase accountability and transparency and contribute to a culture of innovation and continuous improvement in education,” according to the summary posted on the government website.

NPRM deals with discrete issues about student IDs and directory information. Institutions of higher education can adopt information policies claiming what information they will treat as directory and publish as well as who will receive the information, said Steven Winnick, a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough practicing in education law and policy.

Under FERPA, directory information including name, address, phone number and so forth can be published without student consent. At the University, however, a student may choose to restrict the release of his directory information at any time, Assoc. University Registrar Jonathan Helm said. If a student wishes to be withheld from the printed directory, the student must notify UREG within 10 class days after the initial day of class for a fall semester.

“It is important to remember that this restriction only applies to the release of directory information,” Helm said. “It does not impact the release of educational record information based on other exceptions to obtaining the prior written consent of a student within FERPA. Examples of these exceptions to prior written consent include releases to school officials with legitimate educational interest and releases to accrediting organizations.”

Students are reminded annually of their rights under FERPA by email, the Student Financial Services informational brochure on fee payment and registration, and the Undergraduate and Graduate Records, he said. In addition, the University shares information about privacy with students and parents at orientation each summer.

Winnick said “directory information is not threatening because it is not that intrusive or does not threaten your privacy rights.”

Policy disputes nevertheless have arisen as NPRM seeks to strike a balance between bettering public education institutions and maintaining student privacy. Critics are denouncing the proposed rules as flagrant breaches of student rights and have expressed concerns about how much data will be collected, the organizations which will have access to that data and the purposes and extents to which the data will be used.

“Students are usually very trusting of institutions to govern very private and potentially embarrassing information,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. “If you fail calculus three times, it would be a reasonable assumption that it would be between you, the college registrar and the university. You certainly don’t expect it to end up in the student newspaper. That happens to be because federal law mandates it to be that way.”

Nassirian said the current political climate and nature of modern political reform has driven coalitions of foundations and state officials to latch onto the notion that the only thing that will drive collegiate registrars toward better accountability is for states to collect personal information about students and store them in huge databases.

“We don’t contest the right of states to make better public policy and demand data,” Nassirian said. “What we are contesting is how that is happening and the total disregard for private rights.”

The Department of Education is soliciting opinions about this issue and will accept comments pertaining to the proposed rules through May 23. After comments are reviewed, the department aims to publish a final rule by the end of the year.

Some might guess she is married, but instead of representing a lifelong commitment to another person, Burton’s ring symbolizes a vow to God.

“I have a promise between God and I that I will remain pure, abstinent until marriage,” she said. “The ring is there to remind me of it.”

And, according to new data released in March by the National Center for Health Statistics Burton is not alone.

The National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) showed an uptick in abstinence among 15- to-24-year-olds. It revealed 29.9 percent of men had not had any sexual contact ever, while 28.3 percent of women had abstained.

In the 2002 NSFG, only 22.7 percent of women and 22.6 percent of men reported they were abstinent. The survey defines “sexual contact” as engaging in vaginal, oral or anal sex with an opposite sex or same-sex partner.

“They can choose,” Joy Bullock, executive director for the Manhattan Pregnancy Testing Center, said. “Young people are very bright. They can have control over their own bodies. They’re not wild animals who don’t have any ability to make decisions or be in control.”

Luke Werhan, a freshman in communication studies, decided to wait until marriage as well, despite societal pressures.

In what he called being a part of “Generation Sex,” of “test drives” and sexual recreation, Werhan said he geared up before coming to K-State by telling himself that abstinence was the “only way to avoid the consequences of sex.”

“I needed to make a commitment to it,” Werhan said. “I’m really proud of the fact. I’m not embarrassed by it.”

The NSFG, which aims to assess the overall sexual behavior, sexual attraction and sexual identity of 15- to-44-year-old Americans, polled 13,495 men and women over a two-year period from 2006 to 2008 using a random sample from the U.S. household population. The interviewing technique used allowed those surveyed to enter in their answers without the knowledge of the interviewer.

Beginning in 1973, this was the seventh time the NSFG had been conducted. However, only those from 2002 and the 2006-to-2008 polls included both male and female responses.

“I don’t doubt that abstinence is on the rise because it’s a very effective method,” said Bullock, who has been with the center for 20 years. “It works 100 percent of the time.”

The testing center sponsors a class taught in Riley County ninth grade classrooms called Freedom for Healthy Relationships. Manhattan High School is among four schools in the county participating in the abstinence-only program.

Although Bullock did not offer any hard numbers, she said in the four years of the program’s existence, more and more students are bubbling in the option of not having engaged in sexual activity on questionnaires.

So why, in a culture saturated with sex, as Werhan said, are teenagers and young adults deciding to delay sexual activity?

Well, it is a “mixed bag” of reasons, Bullock said. As a supporter of abstinence-only sex education, she attributed the rise of abstinence to programs like the center’s and a fear of sexually transmitted diseases.

Werhan shared these concerns. He said he took this step because of his parents and faith, but “ultimately because when you look at the statistics and when you look at all the consequences that come along: STDs, unplanned pregnancy and most of all emotional baggage.”

And his concern might not be unwarranted, according to data in the NSFG. The CDC found 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted disease each year with nearly 50 percent of those diagnosed among 15- to-24-year-olds. The cost to this age group alone, the CDC said, was estimated at $6.5 billion in 2000.

A comprehensive sex education supporter, Tracey Allen-Ehrhart, a grant writer and one-time prevention manager for the Kansas City Free Health Clinic in Kansas City, Mo., attributed the increase to technology, the recession and sex education in general.

“Anything that helps them to be better informed would help in decision making that is positive,” she said.

Allen-Ehrhart took the abstinence trend a step further based on her five years of experience working at Planned Parenthood as the education director.

“There have been trends toward teen pregnancy rates lowering … attributing it to both young people delaying sexual activity longer and to using contraceptives effectively,” Allen-Ehrhart said.

In the U.S., according to the CDC, the teenage birth rate declined 8 percent between 2007 and 2009 with a record low 39.1 births per 1,000 teens between the ages of 15 and 19, the lowest in seven decades. For Kansas, the percentage change within these years was insignificant.

Meghan Finnegan, the administrative coordinator for the Flint Hills Community Clinic, has experienced the reality of these numbers with teens and young adults coming in for pregnancy testing.

“I most certainly have not seen a decrease,” Finnegan said. “In fact, it almost seems as if it has picked up.” On average the clinic receives two to three calls per week for pregnancy testing not including calls for sexually transmitted disease testing or requests for the morning after pill.

According to statistics from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, in Riley County between 2008 and 2009 there was a 2-percent increase in teen births among women within the “under 18″ age bracket and women 18- to-19-years-old combined.

Allen-Ehrhart said there is not one answer to this assortment of somewhat contradictory statistics, but she said education in general is key in looking to the future.

The plea she has consistently heard from young people through her work is, “‘No one gives us the right information. We want the information, but yet adults don’t want to give that.’”

Though many of us go without considering it, sexual assault is an alarming truth on college campuses. One in four women on college campuses will experience some form of sexual assault within their four years of attendance. Because of this, we must use April to assess just how safe our environment is and figure out what we can do to make our community a place where sexual assault is uncommon and reduce our chances of being sexually assaulted.

The safety of our community lies in our hands, and we cannot allow sexual assault to continue to be an unspoken truth within the Eugene community.

This month, the ASUO Women’s Center and Men’s Center will host several events, including April 28′s Take Back the Night, to challenge our community to think more critically about sexual assault and its discomforting prevalence on our campus. We should do what we can to support our peers in their efforts by attending some of these events and talking with our friends about these issues. Even those who aren’t survivors of sexual assault should be aware of how it impacts those who are.

The fight for sexual wellness doesn’t stop in April. The Women’s Center, Men’s Center and other groups such as the Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team make efforts year-round to make our campus safer. Ultimately, it comes down to our entire population making smarter decisions and looking out for one another.

One of the most important places for us to start being more aware is at parties. Environments involving alcohol are a common setting for sexual violence — at least 50 percent of student sexual assaults involve alcohol, and 75 percent of male students involved in date rape had been using alcohol. There is nothing wrong with having a good time on the weekend and responsibly drinking with friends and peers. We have to understand, however, that in doing so we increase our risk of falling victim to sexual violence. We should consider it our responsibility to protect one another in these high-risk environments by supervising how much we drink, looking out for any signs of forceful action and traveling in groups.

But even then we are not immune, and it can still happen — the National Center for Victims of Crime reported 73 percent of female victims are sexually assaulted by people they know.

If you are ever sexually assaulted, the worst thing you can do is nothing. Though you may feel embarrassed or afraid nobody will believe you, it is important to tell your close friends, family and the authorities, so you know you are not alone and there are people here for you.

Local resources for sexual assault survivors include the University Counseling and Testing Center (541-346-3227), the University Health Center (541-346-2770) and the Sexual Assault Support Services (541-343-7277). They are here to ensure that you can get through these trying times in the most healthy fashion possible and that you receive any help you need.

The prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses today is totally unacceptable. An environment where 25 percent of women will be sexually assaulted shows students and universities aren’t doing enough to protect women from assault and violence.

This Sexual Assault Awareness Month, let’s work together to make this campus a safer place for everyone.

For some students, the violence has made it difficult to visit family in Mexico and has turned what was once a routine trip into a gamble for their lives.

“It’s keeping us away from our family, our friends and from the lives we used to know,” said Arianna Martinez, a UH alumni who graduated in 2009.

“It’s been a struggle because we want to be with our family, but at the same time you begin to think about all the things that could happen if you go to Mexico.”

For Martinez, the violence in Mexico hit close to home last August when her brother-in-law was kidnapped after a gunfire battle in Monterrey, Mexico.

Martinez’s brother-in-law, a bodyguard for one of the CEO’s of the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery, was mistaken for a drug cartel member and was kidnapped along with another bodyguard. Martinez’s brother-in-law was off duty at the time.

Two days later, Martinez’s brother-in-law was found.

“He was in a car stranded in one of the neighborhoods along with the other bodyguards,” Martinez said. “He was pretty beaten up and was in the hospital for five days.”

Martinez’s brother-in-law regained his health and has begun the process of applying for a residency in the US, in part to be away from the violence and to rejoin his wife and baby girl.

Mexicans attempting to leave the violence behind have applied for asylum. According to the US Department of Justice, in 2010 there were 3,231 asylum requests from Mexican nationals, but only 49 percent of them were granted.

The violence in Mexico has no restrictions or boundaries and has found itself on the doorsteps of the Monterrey Institute of Technology, a prestigious private university in Monterrey.

Last March two students from the university, Javier Arredondo and Jorge Antonio Mercado, were killed when they were caught between the crossfire of Mexican drug cartel hitmen and the Mexican army, the Monterrey Institute of Technology said in a statement last year.

“The violence has changed me in that now I am more careful,” said Jacobo Gómez, a mechanical engineer sophomore at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. “I avoid going to known dangerous areas and luckily I have yet to come face-to-face with any violence.”

Gómez can also count on the increased security measures the institute has implemented.

“The university has made several safety tips programs,” Gómez said. “It has also increased security personnel, and put a new system at the entrance where you can only enter by scanning your university credentials.”

The violence in Mexico has been ongoing for a couple of years now and has left some residents jaded.

“There are so many reports on shootings, deaths and road blockages that I’ve noticed people see it as a common thing now,” Gómez said. “That’s not to say that we get accustomed to living with violence, but we hear it so often that the news begins to all sound the same after a while.”

Rachel was not brutally attacked, gagged or assaulted by a stranger. She did not go out alone, walk home late at night, or get lost in an unfamiliar part of town. But Rachel is a rape survivor.

The staggering yet silent reality is that Rachel is just one of an estimated 750 undergraduate female students currently at Washington University that have been the victims of rape or attempted rate.

These are not the violent rapes that are plastered on newspaper headlines, but the unspoken acquaintance rapes that pervade this campus. These rapes have gone largely unnoticed with the rapists rarely being confronted or facing consequence for their crimes.

According to Kim Webb, assistant director for community health and sexual assault services, nearly all sexual assaults on campus are assaults that occur between students, with the victim typically knowing the perpetrator.

A national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that one in four college-aged women encounter an experience that meets the legal definition of rape or attempted rape during their college years. A survey conducted at the University in 2004 confirms that the occurrence of rape at Washington University is consistent with the national rate.

The issue of sexual assault on campus catapulted to the forefront of the Washington University community nearly four years ago in the aftermath of the violent rape of a female student in Myers House on the South 40.

The case—which came to be known as “the Myers incident”—is the only case of stranger rape on campus grounds in recent memory. It occurred when a man tailgated into Myers House, forced his way into the room of a female student and raped her.

In April 2010, a female student was raped and robbed in the DeMun neighborhood as she walked home from campus in the early hours of the morning.

Despite the high-profile nature of these two rapes, these cases stand apart from almost every other sexual assault on campus in terms of their brutality, publicity and the involvement of non-student perpetrators.

“Before it happened to me, I thought it was something that happened to other people,” said Rachel, a senior. “It’s happening here. Not with some lacrosse team at some other school, but here.”

One student’s story

During the fall semester of her sophomore year, Rachel went out with some friends to Morgan Street Brewery, a bar in downtown St. Louis that is popular among Washington University students on Thursday nights.

She doesn’t remember consuming enough alcohol to blackout, but she has few memories of the night and and doesn’t know how she became seperated from her friends.

The next day, she woke up naked in a man’s bed—a man whose advances she had rejected the weekend prior.

She has a hazy recollection of being on her back in his bed and feeling pain in her vaginal region.

The male student—who was a senior at the University at the time—acted as if everything was normal. He was polite and drove her back to her dorm on the South 40.

Two days later, Rachel was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection (UTI), which erased any of her doubts of whether she had had sex.

“I blamed myself for getting too drunk,” Rachel said. “I told myself that my UTI was my punishment.”

Coming to terms with the rape

Like most rape survivors, Rachel didn’t think to classify her assault until a month later when she told her best friend from home what had happened. Her friend responded by saying that her encounter was an instance of rape.

“I said ‘no, I had drunk sex,’” Rachel said.

Rachel subsequently researched date rape and discovered that her story was more than just a case of regretful, drunk sex.

Still, Rachel did not label her experience as rape and struggled to reconcile the violent images she typically associated with rape with her own assault.

“I didn’t feel like I had a right to be upset,” she said. “I didn’t remember it—why should I be mad at something I don’t remember?”

According to Webb, this reaction is common. She says that rape on this campus is so underreported because students often don’t label their assaults as rape.

“People don’t label it for what it is. People oftentimes don’t label acquaintance rape as rape,” Webb said. “Their vision rape is somebody jumping out of the bushes—it’s always violent, and it’s always a stranger. But that’s not what we see on this campus.”

Rachel said the nonviolent nature of her assault coupled with the fact that her rapist was a Washington University student further complicated her ability to grapple with her assault.

“He was one of us. How could he be this bad person?” Rachel said. “If he was a big scary rapist, then I’d be the victim of a big scary rape.”

She tried to repress her tangled emotions about the rape she couldn’t remember, but seemingly innocuous signs triggered thoughts of the night and consistently left her in tears.

There were days when she struggled to go to class and wished she could tell her professors what happened so that they would understand why she wasn’t fully invested in school.

The stress of school, personal issues and the assault eventually took their toll, and Rachel was forced to confront the rape.

A year after the rape, she confided about her experience to her roommate, her best friend from home and her boyfriend at the time.

But still, Rachel didn’t fully understand her emotions, and while she was relieved that they knew of her assault, she tried to hide her pain and was frustrated when they didn’t recognize the extent of what she was going through.

“I was finally in a bad enough place where I couldn’t deal with it emotionally anymore,” she said. “I was hiding it, but angry that people didn’t see how hurt I was.”

Her roommate Katie said she initially did not know how to help her. She eventually found that the most effective way to help was to listen, to always watch out for her and to make sure she felt safe when she went out.

“She didn’t know it was okay to be upset,” Katie said. “All I can do is be there. There are times that she has to cry for seemingly no reason, and I am there.”

When Rachel came to Katie about possibly going to therapy at Student Health Services, Katie said she actively encouraged her to do so.

Therapy helped Rachel to realize that her emotions were justified, and that the fact that she wasn’t violently raped by a stranger didn’t mean that she wasn’t raped.

“My reaction wasn’t as extreme as some reactions you read about, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going through the same emotions,” she said.

Reporting rape on campus

Like most rape victims on Washington University’s campus, Rachel opted not to report her rape to the police or the campus’ judicial system.

She said that by the time she contemplated reporting her rape, it was a year after the fact, and her assailant had already graduated.

Had she woken up naked in a stranger’s bed that morning, she said her immediate reaction would have been to call the police.

Although national and Washington University-wide surveys indicate that one in four undergraduate female students will experience rape or attempted rape during their college years, only a minute fraction of these rapes are actually reported to the authorities.

According to the latest statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, of all the rapes thought to occur on Washington University’s campus in housing facilities in 2009, only five were reported to campus authorities.

The five incidents of reported forcible rape in 2009 represent a decrease from the six reported offenses in 2008.

This small number of reported rapes suggest that a larger problem exists within the campus culture, compounded by a lack of open discussion about assaults between students.

Both Webb and Washington University Chief of Police Don Strom said that many factors contribute to a person’s decision not to report a rape. These can include victims blaming themselves, a fear of not being taken seriously by authorities, and a lack of awareness of what constitutes as rape.

“[The numbers] misrepresent the problems and unfortunately that results in an ambivalence about the issue and the seriousness of it,” Strom said. “Sometimes people have this sense that we don’t really have a problem because the numbers are so small or even nonexistent.”

Strom added that sexual assaults reported on campus are rarely reported to law enforcement but rather to administrators or other programs on campus.

The often-ambiguous nature of acquaintance rape makes the cases difficult to process in court, according to senior Laura Jensen, president of the student group S.A.R.A.H. (Sexual Assault and Rape Anonymous Hotline). Jensen said S.A.R.A.H. has never heard of an acquaintance rape case in St. Louis County that has gone through the courts.

Rape is not only limited to females. According to Webb, one in six males experience some form of sexual assault by the time they are 16. Many of these males come to terms with, and address these assaults, in college.

As discussion and education on sexual assault increases, Webb said that she hopes there will be an increase in the number of reported assaults as students learn what constitutes rape and feel more comfortable reporting their experiences.

“We need to work hard not to perpetuate the image of violent rape because that’s not what our students are experiencing,” Webb said. “I really think this campus is ready to address this issue.”

Defining rape

The University Student Judicial Code defines unacceptable sexual behavior as “sexual contact with any member of the University community or visitor to the University without that person’s consent, including but not limited to rape and other forms of sexual assault.”

Both the University judicial code and Missouri law clearly stipulate that a person under the influence of drugs or alcohol cannot give consent. Given the nature of alcohol on college campuses, this provision complicates many on-campus sexual encounters.

“My steadfast rule is that if you are drinking or having any drugs, you should not take or give consent because it is a hard line to define,” Webb said. “If alcohol is involved, typically consent is not, so it is rape.

While the relationship between alcohol and sex is not likely to fade away from college campuses in the near future, Jensen said the campus needs to focus on discussing what consent actually entails.

“I think we have got to be willing to talk about healthy sexual relationships on campus, and we have to be willing to talk about asking for consent and what consent means,” Jensen said.

In an effort to reduce sexual assault on campus, University administrators and students are currently finalizing the plans for the Green Dot Initiative—a strategy already implemented on many college campuses that is designed to promote social change by recognizing all members of the community as bystanders to violence and sexual assault. The program will train these bystanders how they can intervene during a potentially dangerous situation.

After years of controversy surrounding the hiring of a sexual assault prevention coordinator, this year marks the first academic year that Webb’s post as the sexual assault prevention coordinator has been filled.

Strom said that Webb’s position coupled with the Green Dot Initiative is a major step in confronting the misconceptions and myths surrounding sexual assault on campus.

“I think we are on the right track with having [Webb],” Strom said. “The Green Dot program reinforces what we are trying to do. Our community has to understand that it is a shared responsibility.”

Lessons for the future

Rachel and Katie’s experiences with rape changed the way they view sexual assault and how they make decisions when drinking and going out—they keep track of their friends in an effort to ensure that no one leaves alone.

“I never thought I would be so close to rape in this sense,” Katie said. “It’s shocking to realize that it’s not just happening in your community, but to someone that is close to you.”

Although Rachel is still coping with the rape, she is hoping to spread awareness of the prevalence and often nuanced nature of sexual assault.

“People don’t associate rape with a successful Wash. U. student. I feel like everyone is aware [of rape], but they don’t think it can happen,” Rachel said. “Getting through this and Wash. U. is something that I’m proud of.”

Although many other laws and acts were put into place since the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, slavery remains rampant today in the form of human trafficking.

According to the United Nations, human trafficking is defined as the “recruitment, transportation, transfers, harboring or receipt of persons by the means of the threat or use of force,” and using these threats for “a purpose of exploitation.”

Despite the challenges facing those who seek to solve human trafficking issues, Ariel Anib, junior in criminology and international studies, has decided to take the issues head on.

Anib founded the organization K-Staters that Care (KSTC), with the goal of helping students understand and become passionate about world issues.

Starting this week, Anib and KSTC organized the first “Stop Slavery Summit” to gather students in efforts to make a contribution to the eradication of human trafficking.

The Summit kicked off in the K-State Union Grand Ballroom, in the form of a benefit concert showcasing The Wrecking, a spiritual rock group who gave a moving performance. As the group started the last piece, lead singer Doug Elder said, “There are so many men and women around the world who don’t deserve to be in the situation that they are in, which is why we think it is so important to support this cause.”

As the evening continued, keynote speaker Andrea Martinez, a human rights lawyer, gave an informative presentation on the prominence of human trafficking.

Martinez has handled various cases in child sexual abuse, has been a vocal advocate to end human trafficking and the sex slave trade. Through her involvement in the International Justice Mission, an organization dedicated to the rescue and after care of human trafficking victims, Martinez says that she has found a cause about which she is passionate.

“Slavery still exists in the world. You can be a voice for the voiceless,” she said, as she urged students to take a stand.

As her presentation continued, the numbers reflected what is evidently a major issue in the world.

“There are 27 million slaves in the world today, of which 2.2 million are children,” explained Martinez. “The International Justice Mission hopes to reach out to all of those in need of our help.”

Martinez also went on to explain that between 14,000 to 17,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year, and went on to express the fact that human trafficking is “a universal problem that even wealthy and developed countries face.”

As the Wednesday portion of the event wrapped up, the effects of the music and keynote speaker were evident in the reactions from the audience.

Trevor Barnes, freshman in computer science, recounted, “I wasn’t aware of the human trafficking problem and how bad it really was until I got involved with the Stop Slavery Summit. KSTC is doing a great job in promoting awareness for human trafficking.”

The Stop Slavery Summit will continue through Thursday and Friday with several unique events featured each evening.

On Thursday night, the Summit will take its action outdoors. Attendees will participate in a Freedom Walk, in which students can stand out against human trafficking. There will be different facts and stories to further educate K-Staters about the issue.

On Friday night, students will receive the chance to work with Hagar, another organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking. Participants will be able to write letters to the victims of trafficking, adding a more personal touch to the Summit.

After a successful Wednesday event for the Summit, Anib is calling on K-Staters to participate and become involved in any way.

“Educate yourself, donate to the cause and come to the Stop Slavery Summit; these are all ways to make a difference,” urged Anib. “There’s a lack of awareness of human trafficking on the K-State campus, and it’s up to us to take the steps to make an impact on the world.”

For more information, visit www.k-state.edu/kstc.

The Auburn chapter of the International Justice Mission aims to raise money to free victims of human trafficking.

The chapter contributes money to the international organization which buys the freedom of those who have been trafficked.

The $500 pays for the IJM to free a slave and provide him or her with an aftercare program.

At Sunday’s Freedom Fest at Town Creek Park, the IJM raised $600 through donations and registration for the Walk to Freedom around the park.

Of the 60 people who attended, 35 participated in the walk.

“They literally go in and get these girls out of brothels,” said Grace Ann Hollis, IJM president and sophomore in accounting. “A lot of times the government is actually working with the pimps and stuff.”

When trafficked victims have been rescued, the aftercare program helps them get back on their feet.

“A lot of them don’t have anything,” said Morgan Bethea, junior in public relations and IJM director of publicity.

“If they’ve been kidnapped or taken from their homes, they have to start over.”

Of the traffickers themselves, 42 percent are women, according to the IJM.

“What makes it all the more sick to me is that a woman will come into a village and talk to a lot of poor people about opportunities for their girls to become secretaries and executive assistants and professionals, and then they just capture them and take everything from them,” said Bill Deutsch, research fellow and chapter adviser. “They run them through these brothels. They have a global distribution system.”

A pimp can make $250,000 a year from exploiting one girl, making human trafficking more profitable than drug trafficking.

Deutsch has made about 60 international trips to 25 countries.

“I think there’s a general sense among our students, faculty and staff on campus that this is an issue, but I think as terrible as it is, it’s something that’s very easy to sweep under the rug,” Deutsch said.

“It’s just appalling how much of it is either based in or active here in the U.S. It’s not just a Cambodia thing or a Thailand thing or Ghana thing. It’s insidious. It’s everywhere.”

Human trafficking hits close to home, as the Atlanta airport is the most heavily trafficked in the U.S., said Hannah Flayhart, sophomore in human development and family studies.

In a period of one month in Atlanta alone, there are 7,200 instances of sexual exploitation of a child, according to the IJM.

In many instances, men fly to Atlanta seeking a sexual encounter with a child, make a purchase and then fly home to rejoin their families.

In addition to sex trafficking, the IJM fights forced labor, especially child labor.

“There’s kids getting made to work 14, 16 hours a day in brick factories in India,” Deutsch said. “Or made to put soles on Nike shoes with benzene glues in a room you can’t even stand up in. There’s just a lot of inhumanity.”

Read more:The Auburn Plainsman – A spirit that is not afraid

This system could be in cars by 2013.

Larry Head, department head of systems and industrial engineering, is spearheading research to make intersections safer for emergency responders and public transit more efficient. He’s working to make it a requirement for all passenger cars, pending approval from a committee in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“It’s like seatbelts (the technology) and the savings benefit from reducing crashes and saving lives,” Head said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Friday that the number and rate of traffic fatalities in 2010 fell to the lowest levels since 1949. Arizona had the second highest drop in fatalities in the nation, 11 percent, and Head is hoping their 5.9-gigahertz technology, which operates like wireless Internet between intersection receptors and car radios, could make that decrease even larger.

“Last year’s drop in traffic fatalities is welcome news, and it proves that we can make a difference,” LaHood said in a news release.

Head’s team has been capitalizing on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s development and use of technologies to prevent crashes, such as electronic stability control, forward collision warning and lane departure warning systems.

After testing the system at the intersection of Speedway Boulevard and Mountain Avenue, the team partnered with Maricopa County to replicate the system formulated in the Living Transportation Technology Lab. In a two-decade partnership with the city of Tucson, UA researchers have been studying traffic, from the evolution of traffic patterns to this new research.

“What’s new about what we do is that the intersection knows about multiple vehicles, but for a car, there’s no feedback from the intersection,” Head said. “Operators of fire trucks and ambulances are trained to enter an intersection safely, and that slows them down. They are always going to have to watch out for the driver that’s not paying attention, but we’re making it safer for fire truck to fire truck.”

On average, emergency vehicles respond to more than 30 million calls annually, but their crash fatality rate is 10 times higher than those of other high-risk road vehicles like heavy trucks. Nearly 13 percent of first responder deaths are actually attributed to traffic events over other dangerous situations, according to a report by the Transportation Safety Advancement Group.

If the newest test area, an operation in the Phoenix area, runs successfully, then “it’s time for technology transfer,” according to Head.

The technology will be adapted to freeway on and off ramps and school and city buses.

“And then it’s on to the next problem,” Head said.

The actual act of sexting is not illegal, nor would I argue that it should be. For the more prudish among us, the idea of people sending naked pictures to each other over cell phones may seem disgusting; nevertheless, at the end of the day we live in a country that respects the rights of consenting adults to send sexually provocative photos to each other.

The issue, however, becomes more complicated when the question of sexting by minors is brought up. That is especially true in a case such as Margarite’s, where the picture ended up being used as a way to disparage and defame her. The three teens that sent out the picture deserved to be punished for what they did, as the picture still continues to haunt Margarite a year later. She tried transferring schools, but the story of the picture was soon discovered by students there. She decided to transfer back to her original school, where she still had friends. Due to the mass distribution of the photo coupled with the media storm that erupted following the arrests, the event is still known amongst Margarite’s peers.

In the media storm that erupted, the question was raised as to whether Margarite should have also faced legal repercussions for taking the picture in the first place. The local prosecutor decided not to press charges, and I fully agree with that decision. In some cases, the underage minor who took the photo of him or herself has been charged with distribution of child pornography. This seems unnecessarily cruel. Possession and distribution of child pornography has been criminalized so as to protect minors from those who would exploit them. Underage sexting may be stupid, but it seems to be taking matters too far if the child who took the photo of themselves ended up being charged; minors who are the victims of sexting scandals in no way intended to distribute child pornography in the way actual child pornographers do.

In Margarite’s case, she has already had to face social exclusion and cruelty from fellow students. That already is an undeserved punishment for one impulsive decision made in the midst of a relationship.

Underage students should of course think twice before sending a nude picture of themselves to anyone with whom they are in a relationship. That being said, the practice probably will not stop. Only the most idealistic amongst us could hope that adequate education—such as, for example, the public service advertisements the three guilty teens were ordered to make as part of their plea agreement for distributing Margarite’s photo—would bring about the end of underage sexting.

The technological age we live in has completely redefined social relationships in ways that we are only now beginning to understand and address. Sexting is just one of many facets that we have to consider when we consider the behavior of youth in the age of cell phones and Facebook. There are also, for example, pictures from parties that get posted on Facebook that could come back to haunt one if a future employer or college admissions staff member runs a Google search on one’s name.

It is a scary fact to consider that our social lives and actions are now available for others to see in a way that would not have even been imaginable 20 years ago. A simple status update about marijuana is there forever. A tagged photo on Facebook of a wild night of debauchery can be seen by anyone if the proper precautions are not taken. A naked picture sent to a romantic interest can end up tearing your entire life apart.

Cases such as Margarite’s will not stop irresponsible behavior in the new technological era in which we have found ourselves. They do however serve as a grim reminder of what can happen when we make one silly decision. Our lives are now under a microscope and any decision that is made digitally can serve to haunt our real selves for years to come.

“The Pelican State has the unfortunate distinction of being the most disaster-prone state in the nation, largely because of Hurricane Katrina, which was the costliest disaster in U.S. history,” the Kiplinger website says.

Kiplinger advises Louisiana residents to adequately prepare for the upcoming 2011 hurricane season, which begins in June.

Forecasters at Colorado State University released the predictions for the upcoming hurricane season in December.

The 2011 Colorado State forecast includes 17 named storms and nine hurricanes, five of which are predicted to be major storms.

Hurricanes are considered major if they fall between Categories 3 through 5, according to the Colorado State report.

The report predicts 48 percent of storms will make landfall on the Gulf Coast between the Florida panhandle and Brownsville, Texas, an area that also includes Louisiana.

The Colorado State forecasters make their predictions based on a system of teleconnections, which refers to the idea that weather in one part of the world affects the weather in another, Barry Keim, professor of geography and anthropology, told The Daily Reveille in January.

Keim said the main factor of whether a hurricane season will be active has to do with El Niño and La Niña in the Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

El Niño occurs when sea temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are warmer than normal, which in turn causes cooler than normal Atlantic temperatures and therefore a lighter hurricane season, according to Keim.

La Niña is the exact opposite — when cooler temperatures in the Pacific cause warmer temperatures in the Atlantic and therefore a more intense hurricane season, Keim said.

“We’re in a La Niña year right now,” Keim said. “Unless we swing into a strong El Niño, we can expect an above-average season.”

Keim said some of the worst hurricanes Louisiana has seen have been during “very quiet years.”

People in Louisiana need to be on guard at all times because there have been bad storms in quiet years, Keim said.

“Hurricane season serves as a great reminder to re-evaluate your preparedness plans and update your emergency toolkits,” said Col. Joseph Booth, LSU Stephenson Disaster Management Institute executive director.

The institute strongly encourages people to prepare families and businesses for upcoming hurricanes.

“It’s time for preparedness to go viral,” Booth said. “We encourage the entire LSU community to not only prepare themselves but to help prepare their friends and families. We actually have to put preparedness into action to make a difference.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, introduced a bill Wednesday that, if passed, will designate six top Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

If the cartels are indeed labeled terrorist organizations, the US State Department would be able to charge drug and gun traffickers with supporting terrorism. According to McCaul spokesman Mike Rosen, this is the first time any member of Congress has tried to designate what the cartels are doing as acts of terrorism.

The legislation is targeting the Arellano Feliz, Beltran Leyva, La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and Sinaloa and Gulf cartels — the most violent and successful cartels in Mexico. The war on drugs has already claimed nearly 35,000 lives since 2006.

The proposal is more than just a new title — the distinction would allow prosecutors to tack on 15 years to any conviction of providing aid or supplies to cartels. It would also level a federal death sentence against any cartel action that results in death.

McCaul recognizes that cartel actions are not religiously motivated, but said in the Chronicle that the organizations are routinely found “using similar tactics to gain political and economic influence,” as well as utilizing “kidnappings, political assassinations, attacks on civilian and military targets, taking over cities and even putting up checkpoints in order to control territory and institutions.”

Frankly, any label that can be used to stop the cartel’s criminal operations is fine. Label them terrorists, mafiosos, drug traffickers — the end result is the same.

To put the cartel’s 35,000 death count into perspective, that’s more than 7 times the casualties the US has sustained in the Iraq war — and the cartels have racked it up in half the amount of time America has spent overseas.

McCaul seems to have the right idea. If a label is what’s needed to crack down on the violence south of the border, then a label is what Congress should provide.

“It’s impossible to talk about masculinity today without talking about the impact of pornography,” Hilton said.

He said that the “traditional male is an endangered species” and that this shift from traditional gender roles impacts demographics and lower fertility rates in the developed world.

“Sexuality, in my opinion has been underrated as a demographic factor,” Hilton said. “I think Tom Wolfe was onto something when he said that ‘the bigger pornography gets, the lower the birthrate becomes.’”

Pornography is also detrimental to women’s perceptions of their bodies, Hilton said. He said that some women undergo cosmetic gynecology out of a desire to mimic porn actresses’ genitalia.

Hilton also said that pornography that features violence against women can have negative sociological effects, encouraging misogyny for men who use internet pornography as a sexual instruction.

Hilton said that he believes that the biological cause of pornography addiction function similar to pheromones—chemicals that trigger social responses.

“Pornography is, I believe, a visual pheromone—a powerful brain drug—that is changing sexuality more rapidly through the cyber acceleration of the Internet and it is inhibiting orientation,“ he said.

Hilton also said that this trend detrimentally affects masculinity by desensitizing males to “appreciate female beauty” and perpetuating pornography addiction, which he defined as compulsive pornography use and compared to physical substance abuses.

Hilton argued that excessively viewing pornography results in neuromodulation of human brains, a process that influences the organ’s structure, making it are similar to “gambling, drugs, Sadomasochism and pedophilia,” which he claimed were also addictions. Through the brain’s pleasure center, pornography consumption is rewarded by the provision of dopamine, similar to physical sexual contact, and therefore can be addicting, he said.

The lecture elicited mixed audience reaction.

Taras B. Dreszer ’14 said that he found the talk to be overly moralistic.

“I came to the talk because I was interested in a neuroscience perspective, and I was disappointed by the fact that his points were only loosely backed by science,” Dreszer said.

While Facebook began as a social site for college students only, it is now open to the general public. This unlimited accessibility and the increase in the popularity of the web site, because of this change, has caused some Facebook users to become the targets of identity theft and identity impersonation.

Students feel their Facebook accounts are safe because they know all of their friends, feel that they have an affinity with others users who are in their networks. They also believe if they limit the amount of personal information they display on their profiles they will be safe. However, even Facebook users who do not share their birth year, email address, or phone number in their profile are potential scam targets.

Facebook scammers have learned how to exploit online friendships and pool from limited information in Facebook user’s info sections to scam a user’s friends into giving them cash.

The most common form of Facebook identity theft happens when an individual who has hacked into someone’s account sends messages to that user’s friends claiming that they have been robbed and asks that user’s friends to wire them money. This is not the first time such a scheme has been used via the Internet, but its presence on Facebook is increasing.

Hotel Restaurant and Management sophomore Erika Lopez has had her Facebook page hacked. Her email address and password on file were changed and her friends were made vulnerable in the process.

“Often, we as students don’t recognize the potential dangers beyond the screen we gaze into on a daily basis,” Lopez said.

Unfortunately for Lopez, as well as other unsuspecting users, being put in this situation sometimes causes an individual to lose access to the account entirely.

Anyone who uses Facebook is susceptible to these scams. And, when hackers impersonate the user of the profile they have hacked and it can be hard for users to identify the scam until after the damage has been done.

In spite of the threat posed by online scammers, Brian Adams, a Hotel Restaurant and Management junior, believes that Facebook is generally secure.

“My advice is to keep as little personal information assigned to your account as possible and you will have less of a threat for identity theft via Facebook predators.” Adams said. “I do not put my number or email on my Facebook so my account has never been violated. Also, all my friends on Facebook have my personal info, so they would be able to contact me directly.”

When asked about her perceived safety over Facebook, Sarah Raslan, Senior Communications major said, “I think it’s much better than Myspace, and it’s as safe as you want it to be.”

Facebook has historically had problems with spam and phishers, but the hacking of user profiles is increasing.

Though there is not much Facebook, or even a user, can do to prevent this, there are some measures that can be put in place.

Not posting personal information such as phone numbers, email accounts, or birth years can help prevent your profile from being hacked. Also, users need to keep in mind that although they may think they are chatting with a ‘friend,’ the person on the other end might not be who they think they are. Caution should be used when a Facebook friend makes an unusual request or posts a link that seems out of character for that friend. By using discretion in all Facebook activities and staying up to date on new Facebook scams, Facebook users can dramatically decrease the likelihood that their accounts will be compromised.

The scientists discovered that by applying an oscillating electrical field, they could trigger stronger interactions between the electrical field and the charged flame particles. The effects were strong enough to put the flame out, according to Ludovico Cademartiri, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of chemistry and chemical biology who worked on the study.

The scientists took a piece of metallic electrode in the shape of thin metal wire and connected it to a high voltage power supply and positioned that wire in the proximity of a controlled methane gas flame. Then, they turned on the high voltage source which sinusoidally raised and lowered the voltage.

“Think of it as blowing out a flame,” said Kyle J. M. Bishop, a former postdoctoral fellow at the George M. Whitesides Research Group who continues to collaborate with Cademartiri and the Harvard team. “The [electrical field] pulls to separate the region that’s hot and burning from the unburnt fuel, so that fuel will not continue to burn.”

In their experiments, the scientists used time-varying electrical fields to extinguish small flames—the kind of electromagnetic radiation that could act at a distance. Their success so far suggests that their novel method may enable firefighters to combat a flame from afar in the future. It also increases speed of address, since it takes electrical fields a matter of milliseconds to put out a fire, said Bishop.

“We like to think that what we have here is essentially a new way to affect fires,” Cademartiri said. “Our hope and belief is that if we can find novel ways to address fires that are more sophisticated than just throwing water at it.”

“It’s certainly a new phenomenon,” said Applied Mathematics Professor Michael P. Brenner, adding that his colleagues’ findings were promising.

At the moment, however, the researchers still need to iron out some kinks and begin to work with electrical engineers and combustion scientists to design an effective firefighting device using electrical fields.

The team faces further challenges when converting its experimental ideas into practical tools. Although the electrical field itself is not dangerous to humans—the magnitude of the field the experimenters used is similar to the experience of a spark when touching the handle of a car—high voltages do carry the danger of making electrical discharges, which could potentially be hazardous.

The Whitesides Lab is also working on an a project that involves the use of sound, or acoustic waves, for flame suppression.

“They’re taking giant speakers and aiming them at flames,” Bishop said. “It’s a testament to [Professor] Whitesides for coming up with these crazy ideas.”

However, the sharing of one’s location has opened up a debate about privacy. The Wall Street Journal did an investigation of the issue and published an article in December 2010 about their findings.

The newspaper found that even when users are not using a location-sharing application, other apps on their phones are revealing their whereabouts.

Out of 101 smartphone applications, 47 of them “transmitted the phone’s location in some way.”

Kanokwan Klinhom, linguistics major at the University of Mississippi, uses location-based applications, or apps, with her phone, but only occasionally.

“I use it whenever I’m at some cool place that I’ve never been at before,” she said. “That’s how I record it as a memory on my (Facebook) page.”

Ross Haenfler, associate professor of sociology at Ole Miss, said he believes that many people take the new technologies for granted.

“In a sense we have become cyborgs, so into integrating smartphones, laptops, etc. into our daily existence that they might as well be part of us,” Haenfler said.

In fact, a study done by Carnegie Mellon University, titled “Location-Sharing Technologies: Privacy Risks and Controls,” looked into different location-sharing applications and released a survey on what people thought about the technologies.

The study found that only 66 percent of the applications had privacy policies at all, and applications that did have policies gathered and saved data such as one’s IP address and locations for an indefinite period of time.

“(It can deal with) intrusive effects; for example, government agencies knowing one’s patterns of daily life,” Haenfler said.

But Haenfler also said that location-based applications can be a good thing — allowing parents to monitor their children or law enforcement to find an accident more quickly.

Klinhom said that despite the possible privacy invasion she’s not worried about it.

“When using this app, you want to show other people where you are intentionally anyway,” she said.

Haenfler said we may be redefining what we consider public and private.

“Perhaps cultural notions of privacy are changing as everyone has access to 15 proverbial minutes of pseudo-fame,” he said. “Partly this may be due to how such exhibitionism is mediated by technology — posting something online may seem less of a breach of social norms than telling virtual strangers something in person.”

The sixth annual Dismantling Rape Culture Conference (DRCC) will be held at the University on April 12, Women’s Center educator and Outreach coordinator Sarah Warrington said.

The program hopes to offer an opportunity for students to become educated and aware of the rape culture that surrounds daily life, Warrington said.

Rape culture is a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common, she said.

It is also a culture in which the media and practices of the culture condone, normalize, excuse or encourage sexual violence, Warrington said.

The DRCC hopes to combat this culture by having attendees leave with a greater understanding of how culture supports violence and how the attendees have the power and responsibility to transform it, she said.

The conference will include a full day of activities that include letter writing and action workshops that students can choose from, Warrington said.

The goal of the conference is to have a program suitable for all students, she said.

The DRCC is not just available to women on campus; there are various activities that are offered for men only, Warrington said.

“It is important for men to understand what this culture is and it’s relevant to everyone,” sophomore Anna Lee Nikoloski said.

The conference will also include keynote speaker Samhita Mukhopadhyay, the executive editor for Feministing.com, Warrington said.

“[Mukhopadhyay] brings to light issues and concerns that are in the media,” she said.

The Women’s Center, in preparation for the conference, is urging students to sign up for the conference online at the Women’s Center website, Warrington said.

Various social media are also being used to promote the conference such as a Facebook event page, she said.

Callaway Nuclear Development Manager Scott Bond believes the Callaway County nuclear plant would not be affected by an earthquake in the way three of Japan’s plants have been affected in the last couple weeks.

“The plant there successfully withstood the earthquake,” Bond said. “It was the tsunami that compromised their safety equipment.”

Bond said the Callaway plant is built 300 feet above the Missouri River, which would ensure it could not affect the plant.

The Callaway plant is built to withstand the natural disasters prevalent in Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. said.

“Our reactor at the Callaway plant is a different kind of reactor than Japan,” McCaskill said in a radio conference call Wednesday. “We believe that ours is much safer because of that, and it has been built to withstand earthquakes.”

The New Madrid seismic zone is located partially in southeast Missouri. This fault system was responsible for large, destructive earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. There has not been any major activity since then, but scientists are unsure if activity along the fault could resume.

Most earthquakes take place along the boundaries of tectonic plates. Eric Sandvol, MU Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences, described tectonic plates as moving jigsaw puzzle pieces which make up the Earth.

Missouri is in the middle of the North American plate, making it a very strange location for an earthquake. According to Sandvol, scientists are unable to use many of their usual methods in order to predict when an earthquake is going to occur.

“When you have reputable scientists, who are publishing and actively studying in the field, and if there’s a very vigorous debate, you know probably, we don’t understand it all that well,” Sandvol said.

This lack of knowledge makes it hard to know how much, if any, precaution should be taken.

“It probably wouldn’t be, in my mind, the most prudent thing to say that we’re done with earthquakes and that we don’t have to worry about them,” Sandvol said. “But it’s a balance, because preparing for earthquakes costs money, lots of money,”

The radioactive material at the plant is stored with three separate levels of protection.

The material itself is stored in metal tubes which are contained in a reactor vessel that is 8 inches thick and can withstand more than 2,200 pounds of pressure. That vessel is contained in a concrete building with walls 4-feet thick.

“It’s actually designed to hold pressure as well, the most pressure that could ever be generated in an accident in that building,” Bond said.

According to Bond, the plant was designed to fit the rigorous guidelines put in place by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to withstand worst-case natural disasters.

“On top of that, employees have detailed procedures to deal with those type of events and events that would be beyond the design basis of the plant to ensure that the public is protected,” Bond said.

Joseph Grande, water quality manager for Madison’s Water Utility, said the city tested all of the wells currently in operation and found only three did not contain trace levels of chromium-6.

Grande said there is no federal requirement for cities to test for the contaminant in drinking water but said the city decided to further evaluate the water’s level after an independent organization found traces during a study earlier this year.

“There is no requirement to test for chromium-6, but in recent months there has been a concern that there may be some cancer-causing effects due to the ingestion of chromium-6 in drinking water,” Grande said. “The Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies are currently evaluating the effects.”

Grande said Madisonians should not be alarmed by the recent findings because the chromium-6 levels will most likely fall below new federal health safety limits, which will be implemented in the coming months.

Only two of the wells tested were found to have above one part per billion of chromium-6, Grande said. None of the wells tested as high as the 1.79 ppb trace level found in the January study.

Madison Water Utility is currently partnering with Public Health to address any concerns about possible health-related effects.

“I really do not think there is a significant issue based on what the test results were, but the information we have has been provided to Public Health,” Grande said. “We partner with Public Health whenever there is a concern about the safety or health- related effects due to our drinking water.”

Environmental Working Group, the independent organization that originally found the contaminant in drinking water throughout the country, praised Madison for its continued efforts to test the chromium-6 levels despite lack of federal or state requirement.

EWG spokesperson Leeann Brown said the organization was proud of Madison for responding so quickly to the group’s test results and to the EPA’s response to the study.

“Following our test results, EPA recommended water utilities conduct their own testing, whichMadison did,” Brown said. “Madison tested in response to its citizens’ concerns, which is spot on.”

Brown said collecting data is the most important thing Madison can do right now because without an appropriate data set it would be difficult to figure out where the contaminant was coming from or how to further treat or combat the contaminant.

She said Madison residents should be aware of the issue, and EWG is not expecting to see health concerns arise from this particular contaminant over the course of the next several years, but there is not agreement about what the effects could be in the long term.

“People should still drink the water but should remain proactive in looking at ways to limit the chromium-6 in drinking water,” Brown said.

Studies have found chromium-6 is carcinogenic when inhaled. It is used in the production process for materials such as dyes, stainless steel and leather.

Although she had heard of Egyptian citizen protests against the country’s government planned for Jan. 25, she did not initially find it necessary to evacuate. But by Jan. 28, she explained, “things were unstoppable.”

“I must admit I was nervous, as I lived alone in Cairo,” Cummins wrote in an e-mail to theWheel. “My biggest concern was the inability to communicate with my loved ones back home and even friends across town. With both the Internet and mobile phones down, there was virtually no way to talk to anyone for a few days.”

Even though Emory had attempted to contact her through e-mail when uprisings began in Egypt, a faulty Internet system prevented her from receiving the message.

Emory did, however, contact her father in Florida, who was listed as her emergency contact, to ensure she was able to leave Egypt. On Feb. 1, she evacuated to Istanbul, Turkey on an American Embassy flight.

Cummins is one member of the Emory community among several who witnessed political and social conflict while pursuing academics overseas recently.

Some recent events have either raised concerns about security and safety or altered student and faculty itineraries for studying abroad.

“Whether it has to do with health safety or security safety, we always have information and measures in place,” said Philip Wainwright, director of Emory’s Center for International Programs Abroad (CIPA). “From street crimes to war breaking out, we make sure students know what to do in the event of an emergency.”

To do so, Wainwright explained, students participating in CIPA programs are advised on how to stay safe while studying abroad during both pre-departure orientation as well as when they arrive at their destination.

Specific topics commonly addressed at these meetings include what kinds of activities or behaviors could be dangerous and not walking around alone, especially at night.

“A lot of the advice is the same advice we would give someone on being safe here in Atlanta,” Wainwright said. “A lot of it is very practical: which areas to go to, which areas not to go to.”

College junior John Culnan, currently studying abroad in Salamanca, Spain, wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel that he feels students are generally capable of taking responsibility for themselves and their actions and to act with prudence.

“If we sense danger in a situation, we should make sure we take appropriate steps to ensure our safety,” he said. “That’s a given regardless of the conditions.”

But Wainwright also acknowledged that CIPA addresses possible issues at pre-departure orientation regarding political unrest or natural disasters and emphasize what sources to rely upon if they are caught such a situation, as well as how to acquire assistance, communicate with the program on site, and if necessary, come back to Emory.

A few students facing such situations in recent months, not all of whom were undergraduate students in CIPA programs, have had to ensure their own safety and security due to the political unrest in Egypt.

Clare Fitzgerald, a PhD. student studying ancient Egyptian Art History who is currently completing a fellowship, wrote in an e-mail that she was supposed to remain in Egypt until October 2011. She has been there since this past September and evacuated back to Atlanta in the beginning of February.

“[I’m] waiting to see when I can go back,” Fitzgerald wrote, adding she was not in Egypt as part of an Emory-administered program.

Cummins, whose plans were also cut short, explained that it was “every man for themselves to get out of the country.” She wrote that when she decided to evacuate Egypt and eventually arrived at the airport, she was unable to reach the terminal she originally planned on going through.

“Thousands of people were crowding the first security checkpoint into the terminal, and fights were breaking out,” she wrote. “Police did not appear to be letting anyone in.”

However, a friend also studying in Egypt called her from a more mellow private plane terminal where the American Embassy had put her friend on a flight to Istanbul.

At first, she was unsure of whether she was going to be on the same flight as her friend, as the American Embassy placed those evacuating on flights to Cyprus and Athens as well.

“When I had left my apartment that morning, I had no idea if I would make it out of the country that day, so it was really quite amazing that things worked out,” Cummins wrote.

But students were not the only ones with itinerary changes. Faculty member Peter Lacovara, senior curator of ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at Emory, was in Egypt when the uprisings started in late January, and although he was not in Cairo, he said his trip was also disrupted by the protests there.

“I had plans to go to other areas of Egypt and possibly other places in the Middle East,” he said.

Lacovara was in Abydos, Egypt — located approximately 700 miles south of Cairo — when the protests began, on an excavation for material from an old kingdom’s tomb, a trip sponsored by the University of Michigan in conjunction with the Carlos Museum. Students and faculty from both Michigan and New York University were also on the trip.

Lacovara said even though Abydos was “pretty safe,” faculty still cut the trip short due to concerns of student safety in the country.

“Their faculty wanted to get them out, but we were in no immediate danger,” Lacovara said.

Lacovara had plans to continue his travels in Luxor, Egypt, but was unable to do so. Still, he explained, Emory staff did show concern for his safety.

“They e-mailed me when they could … but it was hard to get through because communication was cut by the government,” he said.

Cummins noted there were no security measures in place for her, so she stayed in her apartment most of the time before leaving Egypt.

With the safety issues in Egypt, Wainwright said he is unsure of whether the Egypt CIPA program will take place this fall.

He explained that CIPA continues to monitor the situation through State Department travel warnings and alerts and risk assessment from International SOS, an organization devoted to ensuring security and health safety during travel.

“We are proceeding with the applications of the students who want to study [in Egypt],” Wainwright said. “But we are working with them to develop some alternatives, looking to alternate destinations or a different time frame to travel there.”

College sophomore Christiana Ponder said that she postponed her fall 2011 travel plans to Egypt partially due to security concerns.

Ponder was initially planning on studying in Egypt this fall, but due to the violence in combination with the fact that she plans to be abroad for the entire year, she is now applying to travel to Europe for fall 2011 and Egypt in the following spring.

Although there were recently some uprisings in Morocco, College sophomore Deborah Schlein, who plans to study there this summer, said protests in the area have been calmer than those in other regions.

Despite some conflict, Schlein and several other students will still be going to abroad.

“I still want to go because I think this program is a great opportunity to improve on all my Arabic skills, and attaining fluency in this language is very important to me,” Schlein said.

Wainwright acknowledged that despite conflicts overseas, many students, like Schlein, both in the past and present, want to study abroad to pursue their academic goals.

“There are many things that can be accomplished by studying abroad in a particular location,” Wainwright said. “If it’s possible to support a student who wants to study abroad to advance their educational goals, we’ll do it, but not if it’s dangerous. And that’s really the conversation that’s going on now.”

Wainwright said that as a result of political and social unrest overseas, Emory has canceled programs in the past, including past programs in India, Israel, Kenya and Mexico over the past decade due to health-related issues, unrest or war.

“If we feel like there are particular places abroad that are not safe for students, we make different plans to make sure students are safe,” said Dana Tottenham, CIPA associate director and study abroad advisor for Spain programs.

While students and faculty in the Middle East have seen political unrest up close, another event has also raised safety and security concerns about students and CIPA staff: the death of 22-year-old San Diego State University (SDSU) student Austin Bice, whose body was found in the Manzanares River in Madrid on Mar. 8. Bice, who was found intoxicated, had left a nightclub by himself, though the precise cause of his death remains unknown.

Culnan wrote that initially, the death had not been talked about much. However, a week after the death occurred, the program director brought up the incident at a meeting with all of the study abroad students on the program.

“She recommended we register with the U.S. Embassy, and unsurprisingly, advised us to always be responsible, especially about alcohol consumption,” Culnan wrote.

Valerie Molyneaux, director of BBA International Programs for the Goizueta Business School, with one of these programs located in Madrid, said “it is natural for educators at all universities to re-double efforts to make sure students are as safe as possible.”

B-School junior Carli Simkin, currently studying abroad in Barcelona, wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel that many students have been affected by the death of Bice, not only because it is a “true tragedy,” she wrote, but also because many of her peers have begun taking extra precautions to stay safe in Spain. She said many of her friends have taken vows to always travel in groups at night.

Recently, Simkin witnessed a student leaving for home after dark.

“Rather than let her walk home alone or pay for an expensive taxi by herself, several of her friends insisted that they each pitch in a Euro or two so that she could take a taxi home without having to worry about not having enough money to pay for it,” Simkin said.

Tottenham said Emory is saddened by the news of the student’s death and that the health and safety of Emory’s students studying abroad is one of CIPA’s top priorities. She noted that students traveling to Spain undergo the typical pre-departure and on-site safety orientations, but also that CIPA stays alert for incidents that happen abroad so they can monitor the situation to ensure student safety.

Although she has not received any specific inquiries from students or parents regarding the incident, she said she will likely mention the student’s death in next semester’s pre-departure orientation.

“Because this particular student was leaving late at night, it’s something we would mention to our students,” she said. “Making sure you’re not alone at night, making sure you have a safe way to get home — those are really important.”

Although Cummins had to resign from her job in Egypt, she wrote she is now pursuing her studies full-time.

“I left for more reasons than just the protests,” Cummins wrote. “But since the project was a government project, I felt there was even less financial security in the job now.”

Tottenham said that as unexpected conflicts occur overseas, the University stays in tune with what is happening, making decisions based on the information it acquires.

“If we feel like there are particular places that are not safe for students, we encourage them to make different plans to make sure the students are safe,” she said. “The world is a very dynamic place, and we are constantly abreast of what is happening.”

“My train nearly derailed in Chiba Prefecture, which is about 200 miles from Sendai, the epicenter,” he said in an e-mail.

In the days following the onset of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and ensuing catastrophic tsunami that hit the east coast of Japan last Friday, UC officials are working to ensure the safety of faculty like Williams – who was able to return to Berkeley this past weekend – as well as the potential relocation of students that are currently abroad.

According to a UC Office of the President statement released Friday, the UC has identified some 32 faculty, staff and researchers who were in Japan as well as about 80 students in the UC Education Abroad Program.

Mary McMahon, the UC Education Abroad Program regional director, said the students in Japan have been accounted for and are safe. A subsequent UCOP statement released Monday stated that the faculty, staff and researchers are also safe.

Another group of students was scheduled to begin their spring term in Japan on April 1. From this group, UC Berkeley sophomore Alex Hendricks said he is now unsure as to whether he will be able to depart.

“Basically, no decision by the university has been made either way as to whether I’ll even be allowed to go to Japan if I wanted to,” he said in an e-mail. “And at this point I’m vacillating between whether I’d even want to go if given the opportunity.”

McMahon said most programs will be moving forward, while those universities that have been affected – namely those in northern Japan – will either offer students the opportunity to study at another university in Japan or in another country. McMahon declined to name which universities had been affected.

Because universities were on spring break, most UC students abroad were relatively unaffected by the event and were either traveling in other parts of Europe and Asia or were at home with their families, said McMahon.

However, she added that roughly 15 students will be relocated to the UC Tokyo Study Center, where housing has been arranged to accommodate those that were residing in affected areas.

“Our first 48 hours were finding students, making sure they were safe and then relocating any that may be in a danger zone,” she said. “We are now turning our attention to try to look forward and see what can go on as normal and what we might need to adjust.”

UC spokesperson Lynn Tierney said issues affecting the entire country, such as a lack of water, limited housing and rolling blackouts, will also affect students, especially if they do not have constant power sources.

UC Berkeley graduate student Bart Watson was in Fuji City – about 84 miles southwest of Tokyo – for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament when the earthquake hit and said that travel following the tsunami was difficult because the country’s electric trains had stopped running due to the blackouts.

“We didn’t get much of the tsunami, luckily,” Watson said. “We stayed there for another day because no trains were running and eventually made it back to Tokyo … I saw panic behind. People were buying bread and water and there were super long gas lines.”

He said after traveling to Tokyo by car, he was able to return to Berkeley on Monday. Though there was little structural damage in Tokyo, there were aftershocks from the earthquake about once every hour, he said.

“We could still feel the earthquake (in Fuji City) pretty strongly and it was definitely the strongest I’ve ever felt,” he said.

Tierney said now that the UC has located all students, they are continuing to make plans to move forward.

“Our position is to try to … make sure they’re safe, make sure we get them to a safe place and then make decisions about continuing their education,” she said.

The ad was created by the New Tradition Coalition, an organization that includes law enforcement, local bar owners and school and health officials. The ad was just one of the coalition’s efforts to increase awareness about alcohol abuse and underage drinking.

“The number of people that we have documented as clicking on the ad were between the ages of 16 and 20,” said Jen Jordan, director of prevention for the Douglas County Citizens Committee on Alcoholism. “This is just representative of the fact that underage drinking is a big issue in Lawrence and at KU.”

In the spring of 2010, the project “Fake ID 101” was launched. TheLawrence Police Department, the Douglas County Sheriffs Department, the KU Public Safety Office, the DCCCA and theAlcoholic Beverage Patrol all combined forces to enact it.

When Fake ID 101 began, its main method for combatting underage drinking was to send officers into bars to ask patrons for identification. Officers were out on four separate nights and gave out 48 citations for alcohol violations.

KU Public Safety Office captain Schuyler Bailey said that when teams go out, they are made up of police officers, the sheriff and University officers.

“This just wasn’t working,” Jordan said. “Kids would immediately set down their drinks and walk away or go to the bathroom. The officers stood out and anyone who was underage would leave.”

Last fall, officers were out on nine separate nights. Overall, 731 IDs were checked, 105 citations were written for minors in possession of alcohol and 60 citations were written for fake IDs.

The increase in citations was due the officers’ new methods, which included wearing plain clothes, checking IDs outside bars and liquor stores, patrolling the KU area on football game days and visiting house parties.

Alycia Futrelle, a manager at On The Rocks liquor store, said officers have visited the store and stood at the end of check-out lanes to check IDs of customers.

“Fake IDs are probably more likely to be used at bars than at liquor stores,” Futrelle said. “Bars are darker; it’s harder to see the picture. And when a customer uses a credit card, we check to make sure it matches the name on their ID.”

Jordan said it was often hard for clerks or doormen to spot fake IDs because state IDs change so often.

“When you are in a college town, it is reasonable to think that kids are from all over the country,” Jordan said. “Kansas IDs are more difficult to fraud. When kids buy fake IDs online, they are almost always out of state.”

To help with this issue, the New Tradition Coalition will provide bars and liquor stores with a book that has a photo of every state ID and its marking characteristics.

As spring break nears, Jordan said bar and liquor store employees would be warned to look for an increase of fake IDs.

“A lot of students are either getting fake IDs to take on spring break or getting them when they get there,” Jordan said. “Destinations like Florida and Mexico have spots set up that have them for sale, so officers will be looking for these.”

The exact dates of bar and liquor store visits were not disclosed. The possession of a borrowed, altered or fake ID may result in fines up to $2,500 and one year in jail.

Junior Declan Sullivan died Oct. 27 after the scissor lift from which he was filming football practice fell. He was a student videographer for the football team.

“I said in the days after Declan’s death that we would do everything in our power to make changes to ensure that such an accident does not happen again — here or elsewhere,” University President Fr. John Jenkins said in the press release. “This system is at the forefront in a completely new and innovative way.”

The University expects the new video system to be in operation at the LaBar Practice Complex when the football team begins spring practice March 23, according to the release.

The system, designed by XOS Digital, will be the first of its kind and include four Panasonic cameras mounted on 50-foot poles, the release said. Three of the poles will stand at the south ends of the three practice fields, with the fourth pole at the north end of field No. 1.

University spokesman Dennis Brown said student videographers would still manually film from the permanent towers and work to edit and produce films.

Brown said Notre Dame began to work with XOS on the new video system in the weeks following Sullivan’s death. The Florida company has installed several systems in Notre Dame facilities in the past 10 years.

“In looking for a way to improve safety in the weeks after the accident, Athletic Department officials asked the experts at XOS Digital about any ideas they might have, particularly in regard to somehow trying to mount a camera on top of a pole that would eliminate the need for hydraulic scissor lifts,” Brown said.

Brown said XOS presented a proposal for the new system in January. Tuesday began the process of installing the cameras, which Brown said are the size of television broadcast cameras, on top of the poles and raising the poles to full height.

The cameras will remain on top of the poles in temperature-controlled units, the press release stated. A fiber-optic network will transmit video to a control room in the Guglielmino Athletic Complex for members of the athletics video services department to edit and produce for players and coaches.

“In bringing its tremendous technology expertise to the table, XOS has worked hand in hand with our football program to form a partnership that now provides a new method of obtaining video materials that our coaches and players utilize,” Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick said in the release.

Both Notre Dame and the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA) are conducting ongoing investigations into the Oct. 27 accident.

IOSHA’s investigation is still in progress, said Stephanie McFarland, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Labor.

“Everything is progressing along the investigative line and there is nothing new to report at this time,” McFarland said. “They’re going to go into the organization and they’re going to essentially look at anything and everything within the scope of the law that they’re allowed to look at in relation to the incident.”

IOSHA investigations result in safety orders when appropriate, McFarland said. These orders reveal findings and inform institutions of citations or fines.

McFarland said she is unable to say when IOSHA’s investigation at Notre Dame will be complete.

“The law does not state anything specific to how quickly an investigation should be concluded,” she said. “They just take as long as they need to do [investigations] properly.”

Brown said Notre Dame also does not currently have additional information to release on its own investigation.

Executive Vice President John Affleck-Graves is overseeing the University’s internal investigation, Brown said. This role includes coordinating University personnel and outside experts involved in the investigation.

The University appointed Peter Likins, former president of the University of Arizona and Lehigh University, to conduct the external review of Notre Dame’s internal investigation.

Likins told The Observer in November that his role would include assessing the University’s investigation results.

In addition to creating the remote video system, the release stated that XOS will contribute to the Declan Drumm Sullivan Memorial Fund established by the Sullivan family.

“We appreciate this wonderful contribution by XOS to the Sullivan family’s memorial fund,” Swarbrick said. “Our staff remembers Declan fondly, and our prayers remain with his family and friends.”

Notre Dame officials are working with the Sullivan family to determine how the University can honor Sullivan’s legacy, the release said.

“We are committed to memorializing Declan’s zest for life and presence at Notre Dame in a meaningful and lasting way,” Jenkins said. “Our conversations with his family members will shape Notre Dame’s memorials of Declan in a manner that give authentic and proper tribute to their son and brother.”

According to an Intel Corporation study released in February, 75 percent of participants surveyed said they believed cell phone users are ruder and louder than they were two years ago. The study also reported that more than 90 percent of people in the study said they witnessed five instances of cell phone misconduct daily.

Intel defined cell phone rudeness as using a mobile device while driving, in the restrooms, in movie theaters or on a honeymoon.

This isn’t a surprise to Damien Pfister, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a research specialty in digital media.

“One of the interesting things in this report is that people tend to believe that other people don’t know how to use cell phones in a proper decorum but don’t see it in themselves,” he said. “They very rarely turn inwards.”

Pfister said the increase of cell phone rudeness could be indicative of a change in cultural norms.

For instance, Pfister said people in the past showed more restraint in public.

This is not because of generational differences, but because of a facilitation of multitasking, he said.

“Mobile phones have created mobile bubbles where people are in their own little world,” he said.

This mobile bubble is created because cell phones are convenient, portable and have made access to the Internet easier, according to Pfister.

“This makes it tempting to whip out your cell phone at any instance,” he said.

Pfister said this can lead to cell phone rudeness in college classes — multiple users who don’t even attempt to conceal their phones.

“People think they can be in a class and listen to a lecture and text simultaneously,” he said.

Michael Overstreet, a sophomore psychology major, said he sees this often.

“I’ve even seen people answer their phones in the back row,” he said.

The response of the instructor varies by professor, Overstreet said.

“I have seen professors put in the syllabus, ‘no cell phones,’” he said. “If they see you with a cell phone they’ll kick you out. I’ve seen that happen.”

Other times the professor won’t care or do anything, Overstreet added.

Rocio Acosta, a senior psychology major, agreed with Overstreet that cell phone use is prevalent.

“I just try to ignore them and tune them out,” she said. “What else can I do? I can’t say, ‘stop texting or talking.’”

Both Acosta and Overstreet have seen instances of cell phone rudeness outside the classroom.

Overstreet said he mainly sees people using cell phones while driving.

“You can tell if someone is on a cell phone while they’re driving,” he said.

Acosta said she mainly sees people text while in line for a service, talking loudly or talking about personal matters.

Pfister said he hopes for a virtuous angle, where people become better with cell phone etiquette and act as models of good behavior.

About 19 percent of study participants admit to rude behavior on cell phones, but say they continue those behaviors because they see other people doing them.

Pfister said this rationalizing leads to a downward spiral in terms of etiquette and manners on cell phones.

“It reminds me of some of the advice I got as a kid,” he said. “Just because other people do it doesn’t mean it’s justified.”

Pfister said there are benefits to using cell phones in public. He specified cell phones acting as information providers in emergency situations, whether personal or otherwise. He also said flash mobs were a creative use of cell phones to engage and communicate with people for civil protest.

“Thailand is a pedophile magnet and has become a destination of choice for people who prey on children,” said Joe Chongsiriwatana.

Most of the demand for sold children comes from tourists, including Americans, he said.

Chongsiriwatana, his wife Yumi, and their three children, 11-year-old Noah, 9-year-old Naomi and 6-year-old Emi, will move to Thailand by June to work in the ZOE Children’s Homes Ministry.

“We have an ordinary family and we just want to radically obey God,” Chongsiriwatana said.

A branch of ZOE International Ministries, ZOE Children’s Homes Ministry rescues sold or orphaned Thai children who are victimized in crime, abuse or prostitution slavery.

According to its mission statement, ZOE works to abolish child trafficking and provide Christian homes, academics, medical care and nutrition for these orphans.

Chongsiriwatana spoke to an H2O church service on Feb. 20 about his work with human trafficking. H2O is a christian church on campus that meets weekly.

Though he is an American citizen, Chongsiriwatana is from Thailand and can read and speak Thai. He said moving to Thailand with his family brings fear of the unknown.

Trying to learn ministry in a country outside of the U.S. comes with challenges because he worked as an engineer his entire adult life, Chongsiriwatana said.

“The transition from working in the U.S. to working in ministry in Thailand would be hard,” said Austin Crass, a third-year in consumer and family financial services who was at the service.

Before moving, Chongsiriwatana is trying to raise awareness of human trafficking in the United States.

“Americans know how to get things done,” Chongsiriwatana said. “When our support raising is complete, we will leave for Thailand.”

Crass agreed with Chongsiriwatana’s message about human trafficking.

“There’s a lot of need in the world and we need to get out of our comfort zone and provide service and support in a radical way,” Crass said.

Bringing Chongsiriwatana to speak at H20 exposed “OSU students to what God is doing overseas,” said David Luk, 26, a field staff member at Great Commission Ministries.

During his presentation, Chongsiriwatana clicked through a picture slide show portraying the human trafficking situation in Thailand.

Human trafficking “is a sensitive subject, so you don’t want to overwhelm people with the gravity,” said Kevin Cody, 19, an H20 small group director.

Chongsiriwatana lightened the mood when he said his wedding ceremony was held on the OSU campus. H20 attendees laughed when he displayed a large picture of his wedding day, taken at OSU, and said, “Top that!”

Chongsiriwatana’s audience was made up of about 500 OSU students and community members, who gathered in Hitchcock Hall, room 131.

Forty-five minutes following the H20 service, almost 100 people remained in the Hitchcock Hall lobby, conversing with each other and taking turns talking with Chongsiriwatana about his ministry.

About 15 people gave Chongsiriwatana their e-mail addresses, asking for further information about ZOE’s ministry and how they could contribute to its mission.

Chongsiriwatana’s three children were with him in the lobby, and he said their education would continue in Thailand, just as it has in the U.S.

“ZOE offers excellent schools at the missionaries and my children will attend school there,” Chongsiriwatana said.

Demands to have student conduct charges dropped and to open a dialogue about the campus Operational Excellence program were partially met, while demands to end budget cuts and to democratize the UC Board of Regents were not.

“True democracy can happen through this method, through our voices,” said sophomore Marco Amaral. “This has to continue because we have two demands that have not been met … There’s nothing we can’t do.”

Soon after an initial nine activists moved to the top of Wheeler by 1:45 p.m., a crowd of demonstrators – whose numbers peaked at about 300 by 4:30 p.m. – flooded the building’s south steps. One of the nine ledge protesters was pulled inside by UCPD and arrested at 2:46 p.m. and booked at the Berkeley Jail Facility for trespassing with intent to damage property.

The crowd was forced off the eastern half of the steps at around 6:15 p.m. by a police force equipped with riot gear that included officers from the Berkeley, Oakland, UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley campus police departments.

Pepper spray was used against some demonstrators, while other protesters reported being hit with batons.

“All of a sudden, I was surrounded by riot police who were hitting me in the stomach and head,” said senior Pourya Khademi. “Just as I was turning away, another one sprayed me directly in the face.”

Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard conducted final negotiations with the protesters’ representative, UC Berkeley School of Law student and Campus Rights Project member Daniela Urban. The conclusion of negotiations was announced at about 8:45 p.m. and protesters began to leave the ledge. They left the building at 9:17 p.m. to a group of about 150 people outside.

According to the terms of the negotiations, protesters from demonstrations at Wheeler Hall on both Wednesday and Thursday will not face student conduct charges. However, three of the 17 arrested Wednesday may still face charges for obstructing a peace officer by the district attorney.

Additionally, students with pending charges from the Nov. 20, 2009, Wheeler Hall occupation will have the option to accept probation through the end of the semester rather than go through with their hearings.

That the student conduct charges – which had a “very chilling effect on student protesters” – were dropped shows that student protesters will not be silenced, said sophomore Abhay Agarwal, who has a pending student conduct hearing for the November 2009 occupation.

“Finally (the administration) got their shit straight,” he said. “They have seen our power.”

While she said she was happy with the outcome of the protest, senior Cristina Urista, who was one of the protesters on the ledge, said that the change had been a long time coming.

“This is my last semester … I refused to give up,” she said. “It doesn’t even feel so much like a triumph, it feels like, ‘Oh, finally.’”

Adelyn Baxter, J.D. Morris and Javier Panzar of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.

Besides the creepy, Big Brother implications of these measures, the machines come with a number of reasons to be prohibited. As mentioned, they provide a source of revenue from citizens who are paying enough already. The cameras ignore the basic function of due process by automatically ticketing drivers, relinquishing their ability to immediately contest violations. Most importantly, though, studies show the cameras actually lead to an increase in intersection accidents in complete opposition of the program’s hopes.

There are a number of ways the state can collect revenue in order to function. Taxes are the most plausible, but raising money while keeping citizens safer sounds win-win. Unfortunately, the mentioned scenario does not account for the ATMs. Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc., the company that manufactures ATMs, earns a portion of the revenue, partially in order to pay for the devices. But even more egregious, this company gets to dictate where the cameras are installed based on a location that is profitable, not necessarily one that promotes greater safety. In line with the profit motive, numerous cities have been caught shortening the duration of yellow lights, in a “dangerous fundraising initiative,” according to the Huffington Post. All of this brings the program’s legitimacy into question.

Regardless of any benefits from the use of ATMs, the machines ignore the premise of innocent until proven guilty. Due to the reality that traffic cameras are incapable of differentiating between an automobile owner and the actual driver, the machines send tickets to the owner of the vehicle. In addition, many citizens have been ticketed for taking legal right hand turns, being treated the same as those who have blatantly violated red lights. A machine that cannot differentiate between traffic violations and legal driving maneuvers obviously has no place in a free community.

As the money-making ATMs have been installed in 450 communities nationwide, studies have assessed the effectiveness of these enforcement mechanisms. As many would not expect, the University of South Florida found traffic cameras to “significantly increase crashes and are a ticket to higher insurance premiums.” CBS Los Angeles found the same conclusion after an audit by the city controller, showing the cameras were unable to improve public safety. The research makes sense intuitively. Instead of proceeding through yellow lights, drivers slam on the breaks to avoid tickets and often end up increasing the amount of rear-end collisions at intersections.

Motorists across the nation have been in legislative battles with the ATMs for years now, but the issue is quickly becoming a bigger debate in Washington. A new bill is moving forward with a third of the state Legislature to eliminate the cameras while requiring a citizenry vote to use them in particular cities. In Wenatchee, more than 700 people a month are receiving $124 tickets in the mail, according to the Seattle Times.

The state always claims it holds the intent of safety and concern for the citizenry, but this is no solution to traffic control. While creating a rise in accidents and ignoring due process, the government is doing what it does best — using scare tactics to usurp a pool of revenue. State legislation should be forwarded and supported for all the above reasons before the cameras become entrenched and part of our daily lives.

Today, children have cell phones capable of navigating the Internet, holding gigabytes of music and reading full books.

We’re happy to see technology advancing, but believe we should be able to choose if our personal information remains private.

Facebook recently decided to create an online phonebook that aggregates mobile phone numbers of Facebook friends and those in your physical cell phone.

Without warning, personal cell phone numbers were made available to anyone with access to your page. There’s a difference between friending 800 people and wanting 800 people to have your cell phone number.

Another cellular invasion of privacy was announced Monday by AT&T Inc. It will use cell phones’ location-sensing technology to send customers ads and coupons based on location.

While this technology is can only pinpoint users to within a one-mile area and doesn’t use a physical address, we feel this treads too closely to physically tracking users.

Some users may find this a cool new feature, but we still have a problem with corporations handing out our personal information for financial gains.

We envision numerous unrequested interruptions during class, work and personal time alerting us about the best deals on Campus Corner. While everyone is interested in knowing about great deals, AT&T shouldn’t be allowed to send us the information without consent.

To prevent unsolicited notices, customers should be able to opt out of receiving information.

AT&T and Facebook should e-mail or send messages to all of its users whenever changes will be made.

We should be asked what information we want to provide and receive, not be forced to find where on our Facebook pages we need to go to remove our phone numbers or what number we need to call to stop receiving cell phone advertisements.

Facebook, and all entities that have our personal information, should ask us what information we wish to provide instead of assuming we would willingly share it.

In a lecture yesterday at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston University Professor of Community Health Sciences Jonathan Howland questioned caffeine’s supposed ability to counteract the sedating effects of alcohol.

“Ultimately caffeine does not reduce the impairment effect of alcohol,” Howland said.

Howland and his research team have conducted several experiments with participants under the influence of caffeinated and non-caffeinated alcoholic beverages.

The results provided evidence that there were no differences in performance between users of caffeinated and non-caffeinated alcoholic drinks, as reaction time in a driving simulator was similarly impaired for both sets of participants.

The marketing of caffeine as a product that will clear the mind and increase attention span reinforces the belief that caffeine staves off the impairment effects of alcohol, according to Howland.

The lecture also addressed whether caffeinated alcoholic beverages truly cause risky behaviors.

An alternative hypothesis is that impulsive people—who already possess an inherent tendency to engage in risky behaviors—favor the consumption of beverages like Four Loko.

“Although the number of students that end up in the hospital from drinking too much has been increasing, the idea that all of these hospitalizations are caused by caffeinated alcoholic beverages is overreaching,” Howland said.

Ellen V. Connorton, a post-doc at the School of Public Health, said the possibility of reverse causation seems plausible.

She added that the publicity the beverages have received may have increased demand.

“Everybody got notifications from colleges that these drinks were responsible for a number of effects and students responded by saying ‘Wow, I gotta try this stuff!’” she said.

Howland’s team has published a paper on the subject and will continue to investigate the relationship between risky behaviors and the consumption of caffeinated alcoholic beverages.

In addition, Howland addressed the FDA studies on caffeinated alcoholic beverages completed before the quick enactment of a ban about three months ago.

He said that the FDA may have been pressured by bans implemented by certain states.

“[The FDA] moved from surveys to shutting down businesses, so there seemed to be a short trip,” he said. “Public policy on caffeinated alcohol beverages should be informed by rigorous research.”

The tour, which will involve members of CRU, Navigators and other campus organizations, will kick off at 1 p.m. Saturday and is open to anyone who wants to participate.

To join the house crawl, Adewumi (senior-Spanish) said students should purchase a T-shirt in the HUB-Robeson Center on Friday at Old State Clothing or online for $9 at psustreetlove.weebly.com. They will then be considered participants in the tour, he said.

“It’s not anti-State Patty’s Day,” Tornetta (junior-science business) said. “What this is about is if you want to celebrate in a safe environment, you can come to this event and participate. Some may be turned off because we won’t have alcohol, but we think it will be a great event.”

Though Adewumi and Tornetta could not release details about the activities during the event, they said the money raised from the event would benefit a group of CRU members who will be travelling to Haiti with the Penn State CRU Heart for Haiti trip during spring break.

Adewumi said the members are going to provide relief work, and the trip to Haiti is expensive.

Tornetta said more details about the tour will be provided at the event on Saturday.

“We are keeping it hush-hush for a reason,” Tornetta said. “It’s going to be a big surprise.”

CRU will host one of the stops on the tour, planned by CRU Community Leader Frank Chang. He said this is the first year this tour has been done.

Chang (sophomore-political science and economics) said the motivation behind the event was so students could celebrate State Patty’s Day without drinking.

“The message is that we wanted students to have an alternative way to celebrate other than to go out to places where they are forced to drink,” Chang said. “We want students to have a safe environment where they feel protected and have an alcohol-free option for the weekend.”

CRU Treasurer Caitlin Young agreed with Chang, stressing the alternative nature of the event.

“We are taking the whole State Patty’s Day apartment tour and making it about love,” Young (junior-accounting) said. “It’s more about love instead of drinking.”

Two incidents recently occurred at the University of Alabama, according to campus newspaper The Crimson White. A member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity used a racial slur to insult a black student Feb. 4, and additional slurs written in chalk appeared across the campus the following week, reports said.

The Kappa Alpha Order at Georgetown College in Kentucky was suspended that same week after allegations that members used racial slurs against a minority student, a report from The Lexington Herald-Leader said.

Yet another incident occurred at the University of Missouri that week when a student graffitied racial slurs on a campus sculpture, according to a news release from Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton.

Niya Blair, African American Student Affairs coordinator, said though LSU has not experienced recent incidents, the issue is always an important one.

“The University does not take these situations lightly,” Blair said. “National incidents such as racial controversies and school shootings always catch students’ and administrators’ attention.”

Blair said situations at other schools spur staff at the Office of Multicultural Affairs to discuss how they would handle these problems.

LSU’s racial makeup has remained stagnant in the past few years. Comparisons based on data from the Office of Budget and Planning show that from fall 2001 to fall 2010, the University experienced a 1 percent decrease of white students, 0.3 percent decrease of blacks, 1.3 percent increase of Hispanics and 0.1 percent increase of American Indians and Alaskan Natives.

Trends in enrollment are similar to racial population in Louisiana.

The white population in Louisiana has decreased 0.7 percent since 2000, according the results of the 2010 Census, and the black population had no change. But despite the small dip in the white population, white residents still outnumber all other races in the state with 2.3 million, compared to 1.5 million black residents in 2010.

The report shows drastic population increases for other minorities. American Indians and Alaskan Natives are up 20 percent, Asians are up 28.1 percent, Native Hawaiians are up 58.3 percent and Hispanics are up 78.7 percent in the state.

Blair said the University is not exempt from racial incidents, but more precaution is taken at LSU than at other schools to prevent and handle these situations.

Many programs are held to promote equality — especially during Black History Month, she said.

Racism, however, is not always blatant, Blair said, and students often do not realize when subtle, non-forceful discrimination occurs.

“Not all problems are reported,” Blair said.

Jamal Griffith and Michael Schmitt experienced far-from-subtle racism recently in Tigerland.

Griffith, a black business management freshman, and Schmitt, a white computer science freshman, said they were trying to enter a bar in Tigerland when a bouncer informed Griffith that his white shoes violated dress code.

Griffith said he changed into alternate footwear, but the bouncer told him there were no second chances.

Griffith said another night he was forced to remove a beanie identical to one a white individual was wearing.

Schmitt, however, said he sees no racism on campus.

Brittany Dupre, electrical engineering sophomore, said she agrees racism is not a problem on campus, but said she disagrees that dress codes in Tigerland are racist.

Garry Droze, black sports administration sophomore, said he has not experienced any racism either.

Racism will always be a problem, said Chris Eicher, electrical

engineering freshman, but bar dress codes are not racially specific.

“[Tigerland is] a private establishment. If they want to exclude a certain race, that’s their right,” he said.

Blair said her office handles racism by facilitating constant conversation on the issue.

“If any students see discrimination, come and discuss with us,” she said.

“I am confident that this bill will pass the Senate and the House of Representatives this year and the governor will sign it,” Wentworth said, adding that the law would apply principally to senior students and faculty members, as people under 21 are unable to obtain a concealed handgun permit in Texas.

Currently, Texas law allows concealed handguns to be carried on campuses but not inside university buildings. Supporters of the bill argue that it will increase safety on college campuses.

“I consider [university buildings] a victim zone where deranged people can just pick off students like sitting ducks,” Wentworth said. “I’m trying to give students a means of defending themselves.”

Those who oppose the bill claim that allowing guns in university buildings would result in hysteria during a shooting.

“If there was a classroom shooting and there were guns in the classroom, everyone would start shooting and it would be mass chaos,” said Brian Malte, Brady Campaign director of state legislation.

To obtain a concealed handgun license in Texas, citizens must undergo background checks, as well as gun use training.

But opponents of the bill fear that the current barriers in place to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands are insufficient.

“There aren’t the laws to prevent dangerous people from getting dangerous weapons,” Malte said.

Gun supporters cite the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms — as a constitutional justification which holds legitimacy regardless of location.

“I see no reason why students, faculty and staff inside campus buildings should give up that right, especially to mentally deranged or suicidal lawbreakers,” Wentworth said.

Particularly because of the Virginia Tech tragedy, however, some students are reluctant to support a similar bill in Virginia.

“I wouldn’t like them bringing [guns] on campus because I’ve had to deal with gun instances in the past in my high school,” second-year College student Kaye Stansbury said.

Virginia Tech also opposes the idea of a similar bill in Virginia.

“We don’t believe there is any place for weapons or guns in the classroom,” Virginia Tech spokesperson Mark Owczarski said. “It is completely against what we stand for. It is self-evident.”

Even students who consider themselves supporters of gun law deregulation do not think that guns should be allowed in university buildings, let alone on campus.

“I’m totally for gun rights but there’s absolutely no need to have them on campus,” first-year College student Whit Clement said.

First-year College student Kevin Fleming expressed similar beliefs.

“I’m generally in favor of gun rights, but that’s a little scary,” Fleming said.

University students cite the combination of partying and gun use as a danger to the University community.

“There’s a lot of potential for accidents, especially [with] how much drinking happens on college campuses,” Fleming said.

Although those who oppose gun law deregulation may suggest that college campuses are safe environments, supporters believe that allowing concealed gun license holders to carry their guns onto campus would allow students to protect themselves. Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a national organization established after the Virginia Tech shooting, supports the Texas bill.

“It is for the sole purpose of allowing adults to carry their guns on campus,” said Kurt Mueller, east regional director of SCCC. “This is a bill we’ve been pushing very hard and we’re hoping it’s going to become law this year. College campuses are not any different than the areas that surround them. Crimes happen off campus all the time, so why can’t they happen on campus too? There’s nothing magical about the college campus line.”

Some University students agree that they would feel safer knowing that they were able to protect themselves against gunmen.

“If someone’s going to bring a gun on campus, then they’re going to bring a gun on campus,” second-year College student Tommy Hanson said. “One of the safest protections against that would be to have people carrying guns on campus.”

Although this bill has garnered support from the Texas Senate, those who oppose the legislation are confident that it will not become law.

“They’ve crossed the line,” Malte said. “This sort of legislation has failed 43 times in 23 states in the last three years. There’s a reason for that.”

Guest speaker Lee Wolfe Blum, a University of Kansas alumnus and anorexia survivor, will deliver a portion of that message as part of a series of events throughout the week educating students about eating disorders and promoting healthy body image. Other events this week will feature discounted food and giveaways of bottled water and T-shirts.

Celebrate EveryBODY Week coincides with National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDA), which campus organizers Student Health Services and the H.O.M.E.B.A.S.E. task force have adapted to address topics including body acceptance, healthy eating and physical activity. Notes and posters posted around campus will spread positive messages about body image beginning Monday.

Ann Chapman, coordinator of nutritional services at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said more needed to be done to educate students about how to appreciate the bodies they are given, especially when the media promoted unrealistic messages about how people should look.

“Everywhere you look, the epitome of beauty is a woman who is five-ten, too thin and has breast implants,” Chapman said. “Three or four percent of women have that body type.”

The NEDA reports that 80 percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearances.

Kathy Rose-Mockry, program director at the Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center, said students who don’t feel good about themselves are less likely to be successful academically or in their personal development.

Chapman said that she had counseled many students who were unhappy with their bodies.

“We know there’s a higher incidence of eating disorders on college campuses for a variety of reasons,” Chapman said.

The average age of onset for anorexia is 19 and for bulimia the average age is 20, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

The NIMH reports that the mortality rate among people with anorexia is about 12 times higher than the death rate due to all causes of death among females ages 15-24 in the general population.

Blum, a health educator at Park Nicollet Eating Disorders Institute in Minnesota, will give talks at Budig Hall and the Kansas Union Ballroom.

Blum said her talks at Budig Hall would discuss the nature of eating disorders, how to identify them and how people can recover. Her discussion in the ballroom will focus on the story of her personal struggle with, and recovery from, an eating disorder.

“The essence of most of my talks is just hope,” Blum said.

Students can receive free bottled water and T-shirts at the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center Wednesday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. as part of Celebrate Activity Day. On Thursday, Better Bites snacks and entrées, available in all KU Dining facilities across campus, will be offered at a discount for lunch.

To learn more about eating disorders, students can visit the Emily Taylor Resource Center, Student Health Services or Counseling and Psychological Services.

Proposed by Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre, House Bill 101 requires universities to educate first-year students about sexual assualt.

The bill was passed in the state legislature on Nov. 17, 2010, said Tor Michaels, Conklin’s chief of staff.

Michaels said Conklin was impressed by Penn State — which was the first school in the state to run a sexual assault education program — and was motivated to implement the law in all schools in the state.

Education about sexual assault is only applied to first-year students because they are the most vulnerable, Michaels said.

Peggy Lorah, director of the Center for Women Students, said the college takes extra attention to incoming students because of the “red zone” — the first few weeks of college — which carries the highest risk of sexual assault.

“It is important for freshmen to have information before coming to campus to know about the danger of sexual assault,” Lorah said.

Some students said they support the new regulations.

“Because we are such a large institution it’s important to use all of our resources to impact not only our university but also other universities in the state. I am proud that I can be part of an institution that is using the resources for positive change,” Christina Bohn (freshman-human development and family studies) said.

In most cases, victims know their assailants, and they do not realize they were assaulted, Lorah said. Sexual assault cases are consistently under-reported by students, she said.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize exactly what sexual assault is and even if they feel they have been assaulted, they are embarrassed to report it,” Stephanie Kerr (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said.

The purpose of educating students is to make sure they know about available support and services, Lorah said.

By applying the law to all colleges in the state, the legislation acknowledges the importance of making students aware of sexual assault, she said.

Both men and women are vulnerable to become victims of sexual assault, she said — because alcohol often has a connection to sexual assault, Lorah said.

“What that means is that because alcohol is often involved in sexual assault that students are aware of that before they decide to drink,” she said.

“It was malicious,” said Gary Keever, professor of horticulture. “There’s no other way to look at it.”

Keever said the trees were poisoned with tebuthiuron, commonly known as Spike 80DF. Horticulture experts reported the lowest amount detected was 0.78 parts per million. Keever said a typical measurement of the substance is taken in parts per billion.

“That gives you some idea of how concentrated it is around Toomer’s Oaks,” Keever said.

The trees, estimated to be more than 130 years old, are not expected to survive such a concentrated dose of the poison.

Soil samples were sent to the lab the day after a caller claimed Jan. 27 on air to have poisoned the trees on the Paul Finebaum radio show out of Birmingham.

“I poisoned the two Toomer’s trees,” said an audibly outraged caller who identified himself only as Al from Dadeville. “I put spike 80DF in them. They’re not dead yet, but they definitely will die. Roll Damn Tide.”

The caller said he poisoned the trees following the Iron Bowl in reaction to Auburn fans allegedly rolling the Toomer’s trees after the death of Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in 1983 and, more recently, taping the No. 2 Cam Newton jersey to the Bryant statue in Tuscaloosa before the 2010 Iron Bowl.

“That puts it at three months ago,” said Scott McElroy, associate professor of weed science in the College of Agriculture.

McElroy said the effects of the poison will be visible at “greening,” when the tree grows its first leaves of spring.

“We should start seeing them over the next few weeks,” McElroy said. “The trees will drop all of their leaves.”

After several cycles of leaf-shedding, McElroy said the trees will begin to die, but the process could take several years. He did not rule out the possibility of the trees recovering.

“They’re very stressed trees anyway,” McElroy said. “No one really knows how much was taken up by the soil. If they survive, they’re not going to look good.”

Keever said activated charcoal was placed on the trees Wednesday morning and an active transpirent, which will stop the tree from losing water, will be laid down Thursday morning in an attempt to stop the spread of poison.

However, if the trees were indeed poisoned three months ago, Keever said the poison could have spread through the soil to surrounding trees. Keever said samples had been taken at 10-foot increments in a 65-foot radius around the trees.

McElroy said the poison is not harmful to humans in small amounts and said he was not concerned about human harm.

“You would have to eat a pound of stuff for it to kill you and several grams for it to make you sick,” McElroy said.

Keever said the poison was also not harmful to wildlife who nest in the trees.

While the investigation is ongoing, McElroy said he hopes it will not be difficult to determine who purchased the poison.

“This is not something everybody goes out and buys,” McElroy said. “There’s only a small amount of people in the state of Alabama who buy this every year.”

McElroy compared the poisoning of the Oaks to the Treaty Oak in Austin, Texas, which was poisoned by a similar substance in 1989, sparking local outrage. The person responsible was apprehended and sentenced to nine years in prison.

President Jay Gogue urged the Auburn family to use caution before rushing to judgement.

“It is understandable to feel outrage in reaction to a malicious act of vandalism,” Gogue said. “However, we should live up to the example we set in becoming national champions and the beliefs expressed in our Auburn Creed.”

Read more:The Auburn Plainsman – A spirit that is not afraid

The Daily Egyptian obtained details about an alleged battery involving men’s basketball players sophomore center Gene Teague, and junior guards Mykel Cleveland and Troy Long.

According to the police report and a written statement by the victim, the players are being charged for allegedly shooting an undisclosed 20-year old male with an Airsoft rifle from a white Ford Mustang, which they had borrowed from women’s basketball freshman point guard Brooke LeMar while she was out of town.

Before firing the rifle, Mykel Cleveland stopped the car and asked the victim for directions to Smith Hall. After thanking him the victim turned around to walk away from the vehicle.

“I walked about two paces and felt as though a small rock had been thrown at my head,” the victim said in a written statement in the report.

After the suspects shot him, the victim said he heard the sound of small rocks hitting an aluminum awning on the side of the building.

“I realized what sounded like a ratchet rapidly being cocked behind me,” the victim said.

The victim turned back toward the car, and the Mustang then drove away, according to the report. The victim said he was not injured.

Two written statements by witnesses said they saw a white Mustang driving recklessly in Thompson Point that night. One witness said the vehicle squealed its tires as it drove around a corner and started tailgating the car in front of it. Another witness said he or she saw the vehicle “chasing a reddish car nearly bumper to bumper.”

“The white Mustang was driving very aggressively around the turn of the circle,” the latter witness’ statement said.

Cleveland was also driving the car on an expired license. The car was impounded and Cleveland was issued a warning for his expired driver’s license. The Daily Egyptian tried contacting LeMar or her head coach for comment, but athletic department media services said everything that needed to be said was available in the police report.

Campus police declined to comment about the incident.

The Daily Egyptian also contacted the Student Judicial Affairs office but no one was available for comment.

The three players also filed a voluntary written statement with campus police. The players’ statements said they bought three Airsoft guns at approximately 6:36 p.m. Feb. 3 from Walmart, dropped off Drinkard, and shot him and another person.

“(Then) someone shot a random guy,” Cleveland said in his statement.

The unidentified victim was shot in the back of the head while he was wearing a hood, according to the report.

Teague’s statement said he was the one who shot an unidentified person after dropping his teammate off. The players’ statements said they were playing around and shooting each other and fellow teammates.

“With teammates, our (intentions) with the guns were to joke around and shoot each other with the guns,” Long’s said in his statement.

The players were charged with battery, which is a city ordinance violation and a breaks the university code of conduct.

According to the code, “Unauthorized possession on campus means possession without authorization from Director of Department of Public Safety or his/her designee. Weapons include but are not limited to: pellet guns, BB guns, air guns and any other object a reasonable person may believe to be a gun.”

The case is being prosecuted in criminal court by the Carbondale city attorney’s office. The players’ first appearance is March 9, three days after the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. City attorney, Mike Kimmel, who will not be prosecuting the case, said he would not comment about pending litigation because of ethical reasons.

The men’s basketball team did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday, but coach Chris Lowery did hold a press conference on Feb. 4 where he released limited details about the incident.

“The suspension was the right thing to do,” Lowery said in a press conference Feb. 4. “These are not violent kids; these are not bad kids; there was nobody injured; there was nobody hurt, but there are ramifications for your behavior.”

The incident could have led to worse circumstances, said Joe Schafer associate professor in criminology. He said a small number of these incidents result in fatalities every year.

“An officer in the moment doesn’t know if it’s a fake gun,” he said. “It’s difficult to determine from 15 to 20 feet away.”

The incident came during the team’s five-game losing streak, its worst since the 1996-97 season. Without 6-foot-9, 290-pound Teague in the paint, Creighton’s center Gregory Echenique posted 12 points and 14 rebounds Sunday in the Salukis 50-69 loss.

The suspensions end Feb. 19 in time for the Salukis’ ESPN BracketBuster game against Green Bay.

Alexa Kanbergs, a peer health educator for the University Health Center, is part of a growing number of students choosing to abstain from alcohol to avoid the health risks and potentially dangerous actions associated with drinking.

“When drinking, you’re just hurting yourself, so I feel like you’re backtracking in that sort of sense,” Kanbergs said. “There’s also so much risk associated with drinking when you’re under 21; MIPs (Minor in Possession) are so expensive and other sort of alcohol-related risks such as drinking and driving is just not worth it.”

According to a recent survey done by Outside the Classroom Inc., a nationwide alcohol education and prevention program, Kanbergs is not alone. Brandon Busteed, founder and CEO of Outside the Classroom, Inc., said 62 percent of nearly 500,000 incoming freshman college students randomly surveyed nationwide reported they had not had a drink during the two weeks prior to their first semester of college, which is a marked increase from 38 percent in 2006. Busteed said these results are very promising, because he speculates that “this trend is probably going to continue for several years.”

Outside the Classroom, Inc., did not provide data for students’ drinking habits after entering college.

Although no concrete reasons have been established to account for the gradual increase of incoming teetotaling college students, Busteed said a variety of factors may influence students not to drink. Those include a rise in the amount of students who perceive college as a place of personal and intellectual growth and an increased amount of emphasis placed on the value of education due to the recession.

“More students are saying in other surveys that they are looking at college as a place where they’re going to develop a meaningful philosophy of life,” Busteed said. “I certainly believe that is connected with the idea that less students are coming to college as drinkers, because if they’re more serious about how they perform in college, then drinking is just going to be one of those things that gets in the way of their goals and pursuits.

“A lot of other people have also speculated that students and parents are making more sacrifices, because the economy has been so difficult over the past several years, which has motivated students to take their studies much more seriously.”

Busteed also said students reported that the limited privacy and watchdog function of social networking websites have also modified their behaviors, because the fear of getting caught or judged is too great.

“They don’t want to have photos of them doing stupid stuff when their employers that they’re trying to get jobs with go and look at their Facebook profile and see someone doing a keg stand,” Busteed said. “That’s not the kind of thing that will land you a job. Also, the knowledge that Facebook is such a public thing now, where your mother and your grandmother on Facebook, is another theory as to why some of the students may be actively trying to monitor and modify their behaviors.”

In addition, a University-wide survey seems to support the assertion of students drinking less. According to the University’s National College Health Assessment, which is administered by the University in conjunction with the American College Health Association every three years, 23.1 percent of all University students reported they did not consume alcohol over the past 30 days. However, the survey also noted that 1.9 percent of those students reported they abstained from alcohol during that same period.

“When we look at the perceptions, students generally way overestimate how much students drink,” said Paula Staight, health center director of health promotion. “Most of our students do drink responsibly, if they choose to drink; it’s a minority of those students that drink to excess.”

To combat the student consumption of alcohol, Sheryl Eyster, University associate dean of students, said the Peer Health Education program conducts a wide variety of presentations for freshmen during IntroDUCKtion, and with students in residence halls, fraternities and sororities.

“Being a peer health educator and being exposed through our class to everything you could ever want to know about alcohol does to your system and how your body processes, it really keeps me responsible and motivates me to be careful about what I put in my body and be conscious how much I drink, when I do drink,” said Hannah Dischinger, a peer health educator. “I think it’s our goal as peer health educators to share that knowledge with everyone, so they can make informed decisions and be safe, if they do choose to drink.”

The university was placed on lockdown after the gunshot rang out due to an argument that occurred between the two males. The victim sustained a minor hand injury, and police blocked off all areas around the Business and Aerospace Building where they suspected the alleged shooter had fled.

“We have the scene secured,” said Kyle Evans, deputy spokesperson for the Murfreesboro Police Department. “[The] victim received a minor gunshot wound to the hand.”

The victim received immediate medical attention as he gave his statement, which led to finding the suspect, Evans said.

“We were able to secure the victim, get him all of the medical attention he needs while getting his statement and getting that out to both MTSU [campus police] and Murfreesboro police, as well as the Rutherford County [Sheriff's Department],” Evans said. “With that information, we were able to find the suspect and get him into custody without anybody else getting hurt.

Evans said there are conflicting reports on how many shots were fired.

“We know for sure at least one shot was fired, but we’re investigating how many were actually fired,” Evans said.

Many students heard the gunfire but few saw it.

“‘He just f***ing shot my thumb,” said Joanna Branson, a student eyewitness, quoting the victim after he was shot.

Branson and Heidi O’Brien sat on a bench outside the KUC and saw the argument between the two males taking place right in front of them.

“We were 10 feet away from them,” Branson said. “We heard the guys yelling – they were just cursing a lot.”

The argument escalated and the suspect pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and fired at the victim hitting a thumb, Branson said.

“Somehow he shot him on the tip of his thumb,” Branson said.

Bethany Carlson, a student who saw the weapon, said she was sitting on the outside of the Quad and heard the victim shouting at the suspect after he was shot.

“‘Come on, you want to shoot me, I’m here,’” Carlson said, quoting the victim.

The gun used looked like a child’s toy, Carlson said.

“It looked like a toy gun,” Carlson said. “It was a shiny little revolver.”

Natalie Lewis, a student eyewitness, said she saw the suspect flee the scene while concealing the weapon.

“I heard the pop, but nobody knew what was going on because they all just stood there, ” Lewis said. “I saw the gleam of the gun as [the suspect] put it in his bag.”

Lewis said she saw the suspect casually walk toward the BAS, into the building, and out of sight.

“So he went into the BAS with a loaded gun,” Branson said.

O’Brien said the victim chased after the suspect after he was shot.

“The [victim] took his overshirt off and went [after] him,” O’Brien said.

Branson and O’Brien said they are stunned that they saw the shooting.

“I’m kind of shocked he got shot in front of us,” O’Brien said.

Police were notified immediately of the shooting, Evans said, adding this was a very serious matter, but police are highly trained for situations like this.

“Anytime you have somebody that’s armed with a handgun in a very crowded, populated area, it’s a very serious situation,” Evans said. “It’s something that we train for on a daily basis, our SWAT team and MTSU [campus] police had a very coordinated response, we initiated our Code Red.”

Police are researching the relationship between the two males to conclude why this happened.

“We believe there was some initial type of altercation in which started this chain of events,” Evans said. “We’re going to look into exactly what kind of relationship did exist and what led up to the shooting.”

Police do not know if the suspect is a student, and it was not clear if the victim was a student either.

“We don’t know right now [if the suspect is a student], just very preliminary stages, he was walking out with other students,” Evans said.

One student said that his Valentine’s Day is over.

“I’m going home,” said Justin Bingham, a senior majoring in digital animation. “Happy Valentine’s Day – I’m going home.”

Via his Twitter account, @Jared_Sully0, Jared wrote that Badgers fans spat on him before and after the game.

“To be spit on is just nasty. On top of that in my Face,” he wrote. “I just kept walking. More fuel to the fire.”

Jared did not reference the incidents during postgame interviews, but he did tweet that one of the incidents occurred after Badgers fans rushed the court to celebrate the victory.

Justin Doherty, University of Wisconsin assistant athletic director for external relations, told Madison.com that the incidents are under investigation.

“We were made aware of it (Saturday) night,” he said, according to the site. “That’s about where it is right now.”

Jared’s brother J.J. told The Lantern that the spitting incident was “uncalled for.”

“That’s the biggest sign of disrespect you can have,” he said. “To spit on someone just because they’re wearing a different jersey than you, I don’t understand how that could be something that you would even do.”

J.J., who played basketball for the Buckeyes from 2003–06, said no fan has ever spit on him.

“There’s always going to be that knucklehead that takes it too far,” he said. “I’m sorry it happened to my brother and I’m glad I wasn’t there.”

Wisconsin fans also chanted vulgarities, directed at senior guard Jon Diebler, when he was at the free-throw line.

OSU spokesman Dan Wallenberg declined to comment on the alleged spitting incident.

“We are preparing for the (Michigan State) game Tuesday,” he said.

Jared could not be reached for comment. Wisconsin officials declined The Lantern‘s request for comment.

And now, it’s become a great tool for police departments and prosecuting attorneys.

“It’s the 21st-century version of a private investigator following you,” said Trevor Wells, an attorney with Lexington’s Miller Wells.

Wells explained that while conducting research about the use of social networking sites in court cases for a continuing legal education seminar for the bar, he found that “every couple of months the number doubled with the cases involving Facebook.”

While larger police departments and law firms use Facebook and other social networking sites to find evidence for domestic relations, gang-related, and personal injury cases, smaller PDs use the networks less aggressively.

“We’ve used Facebook in the past to gather information related to crimes,” said Joe Monroe, chief of the University of Kentucky Police Department.

Monroe explained that, contrary to popular belief, the UKPD does not use Facebook as a way to locate student parties. He said that not only would that process be a full-time job, it would be a waste of the UKPD’s resources, manpower and time.

Currently the UKPD operates one Facebook page. It represents the organization as a whole and, according to Monroe, is used simply as another way to communicate with the public.

However, over a year ago UKPD detectives used Facebook as a means to an end in cases related to theft, robbery and drugs.

Monroe said the process didn’t involve a random search or fake profiles — instead, the detectives had suspects in mind and simply conducted a search to see public information, which was displayed on unblocked profiles. From there the detectives followed trails of evidence and submitted documentation to the courts.

“As long as people post things blindly, Facebook will be a useful tool,” Monroe said.

Northern Kentucky University Police Department Sgt. Will Love said, similar to UKPD, that the only Facebook page they operate is one for community relations. However, he said in previous years it has been useful to locate students who had otherwise been unreachable by concerned parents.

“We use it if it helps, but it’s not the first place we go,” Love said.

“Social networks in general are a great way to give and get information. It’s a wonderful way to open a dialogue with the community,” Sherelle Roberts, the public information officer for the Lexington Division of Police, said.

She said that social networking sites have been used in Lexington investigations. Most incriminating information has been posted to public profiles via video or photos on Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Myspace.

“It’s impossible to quantify Facebook’s use in cases,” Roberts said, adding that over the last decade the Internet has been a tremendous tool in gathering information and identifying criminal activity.

Monroe said nearly 75 percent of police departments use Facebook in some fashion. Developing fake Facebook or Myspace pages is nearly beyond the scope of necessity for campus police departments, but not entirely out of the question for larger organizations.

Wells explained that private profiles aren’t entirely out of the reach of the law either.

“More and more we’re seeing formal requests (being filed) for Facebook page activity,” he said.

Other realms of the legal system are using social networks for cases as well, and it most likely will continue to grow in this day and age.

Columbus Jones Jr., 22, and Braylon Rogers, 19, are both facing charges of aggravated murder, 11 counts of felonious assault and improperly discharging a firearm into a habitation.

Jamail Johnson, a 25-year-old senior at YSU, was killed in the shooting.

According to an article by the Trumbull County Conservative Examiner, Johnson died trying to save others from the gunfire.

Instead of running away from the shots, Johnson ran toward the shooters, pushing them out of the house.

Audrey Foreback, a junior elementary education major at SRU, was friends with Johnson.

“He was like a best friend to me,” she said. “I’ve known him since I was 15 years old.”

Foreback described Johnson as a very high-spirited person and said he was a proud member of Omega Psi Phi.

“I lost a great friend because of senseless violence, but he is a hero to many now,” she said. “Last Wednesday he told me he was proud of me. His words will remain in my heart forever.”

Among the 11 other victims of the shooting is Shavai Owens, a 17-year-old high school senior who is listed in critical condition. She suffered a gunshot wound to the head, according to the police report from the Youngstown Police Department.

According to an article by the Youngstown Vindicator Tuesday, Owens became conscious Monday morning.

The police report states that Jones and Rogers were involved in a fight at the Love Lounge night club in Youngstown earlier Saturday night. They reportedly came to the Omega Psi Phi party at 55 Indiana Ave., less than a mile from the YSU campus, looking for the individual they had fought with at the Love Lounge.

“The two entered the fraternity house and, not locating the individual they were looking for, began to argue with the fraternity members. The two were pushed out of the house and upon exit, both men pulled out automatic handguns and opened fire into the house,” the report said.

Charles Allen, a senior history and political science major at SRU and president of the Slippery Rock branch of the Zeta Pi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi, was shocked by the events.

“We were close with that branch so I’ve been there to visit them,” he said. “It’s a violent area, so I wasn’t shocked something like that happened, but I was shocked someone died.”

A memorial service will be held Saturday for Johnson, and Allen said he and his brothers will be there.

Jones and Rogers aren’t members of the fraternity or students at YSU.

The Youngstown Vindicator reported that prosecutors told the court Tuesday at the bail hearing that both Jones and Rogers have been in trouble with the law before.

Jones pled guilty and was convicted of felony burglary in August 2007. He was sentenced to an in-house treatment program and two years of probation. A probation violation in Feb. 2008 led Jones to be sentenced to three years in prison, but he was released in April 2009.

Jones was also accused of punching a woman in the face in 2007 and was convicted for assault on a teacher when he was a juvenile.

Rogers was convicted for attempted burglary and disorderly conduct as a juvenile, and was also involved in a hit-and-run in 2009.

Judge Robert Douglas of Youngstown Municipal Court made the decision to hold both suspects without bond. The suspects appeared at the arraignment via video.

YSU’s campus newspaper, The Jambar, reported that one of the victims, Jordon Wagner, 20, doesn’t think Jones and Rogers were the shooters.

Wagner, who was shot in his left shoulder and right foot, said he was standing next to Rogers when the shots were fired. Police and Wagner agree the shots came from outside the house.

According to police, all of the other victims that were interviewed pointed to Jones and Rogers as the shooters.

The Jambar could not be reached for comment by press deadline.

Nunez was involved in the fatal 2008 stabbing of then Mesa College student Luis Santos.

Outraged, the family filed a lawsuit Jan. 20 on the basis of Marsy’s Law, or the Victim’s Bill of Rights, which allows the victim and victim’s family to be heard during major judicial post-trial decisions.

Nuñez, son of the former California Assembly Speaker and political ally of Schwarzenegger Fabian Nuñez, had his sentence commuted by Schwarzenegger’s on his final day in office. Schwarzenegger did so without any word from the former governor.

“The governor did not even have the courtesy to notify the victim’s family,” said Fred Santos, Luis Santos’ father, to LA Times reporters. “This is dirty politics: cutting backroom deals. I guess if you’re the son of somebody important, you can kill someone and get all sorts of breaks.”

Nuñez, Ryan Jett, Leshanor Thomas and Rafael Garcia, calling themselves “The Hazard Crew,” attempted to enter a fraternity party near San Diego State University and were turned away the night of Oct. 3, 2008.

“The Hazard Crew” continued to drink at a friend’s apartment until about 2 a.m. After leaving, the four men ran into Santos and three other students who were leaving the fraternity party. All four were stabbed and Santos’ heart was severed.

According to the 2008 arrest warrant, “Nuñez said whatever happens, he would take the rap for it and hopefully his dad would take care of it and could get them off on self defense.”

Nuñez pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon in order to avoid a murder charge, which would have landed the “crew” 25 years to life in prison. Instead Jett and Nuñez received 16 years.

Schwarzenegger reasoned that Nuñez did not have a prior criminal record and did not deserve the same sentence as Jett, who allegedly dealt the fatal wound to Santos’ heart.

According to the LA Times Fred Santos believes this is “100 percent politics and nothing but.”

With his lawsuit against the former governor Santos hopes to end the careers of both Schwarzenegger and Fabian Nuñez – setting an example for future would-be backroom dealers.

“The governor’s decision is a reflection of what this case would have been like if politics had not been involved,” Nuñez’s trial lawyer Brad Patton told LA Times reporters.

The Santos family, who filed their lawsuit in Sacramento, will be among the first to challenge the governor’s power to commute a prisoner’s sentence. Marsy’s Law, which was passed in 2008, is vague on enforcement rules against this specific power granted to California’s governors.

“We’re not saying that (Schwarzenegger) doesn’t have the power to commute a sentence, but he does not have the power to violate the Constitution and … there were mandated guidelines that he needed to follow,” Nina Salarno Ashford, a lawyer for the Santos family, told Reuters.

Police charged sophomore cornerback Devin Wallace, sophomore center Mike Price and redshirt sophomore linebacker Ausar Walcott each with three counts of assault and battery by mob and burglary-entering a dwelling with the intent to commit an assault. After police obtained warrants Tuesday, all three players “cooperatively turned themselves in,” according to a police report.

The report specifies that the incident occurred at an apartment complex near James Madison University Jan. 30 at 1:34 a.m. Wallace, Price and Walcott allegedly assaulted three males after a verbal altercation escalated. Two victims were taken to Rockingham Memorial Hospital in Harrisonburg, Va. with non-life threatening injuries and have been released since then, the report said.

James Madison senior Kyle Kelly said the assaults took place during a party he helped host.

“A few of my friends that are alumni came down, and we decided to throw a party at another friend’s house,” Kelly said. “I was playing beer pong, and all the sudden, three or four guys barged in screaming, and they wanted to fight because they thought somebody had [directed a racial slur toward] them, and there was a big scuffle.”

Kelly said a full-scale fight did not develop because of the apartment’s crowded space, but some damage did occur.

“My friend got a bloody lip, went to the hospital and got eight stitches,” Kelly said. “We just tried to get them out of the party. They broke a piece of trim on the door as they left.”

The party was held on the apartment’s third floor. Kelly said when the guests went downstairs, they discovered another injured party, whom he described as “bleeding profusely from his head.”

Kelly said he did not know who the players were at the time.

“We hadn’t seen them in the party the whole night,” Kelly said. “We didn’t invite them, we didn’t know who they were. We actually thought they might have been JMU football players. They could have been NFL players for all I knew, I had no idea.”

The University has responded to the news by immediately suspending the three football players from the team.

“The players know the expectations I have for them as student-athletes both on and off the field, and as representatives of both the football program and the University,” coach Mike London said in a press release Tuesday. “I am disappointed in the conduct of these individuals and the fact they chose not to represent themselves in the appropriate manner.”

Walcott started 11 of Virginia’s 12 games last season, recording 56 tackles — the team’s third-highest total. Wallace started seven games for the Cavaliers, playing in place of injured senior cornerback Ras-I Dowling. Pierce served as the team’s reserve center.

“They will not participate in any team activities while suspended,” London said. “But they will continue to attend all study halls and to meet their academic requirements.”

The arrest comes a day after The Cavalier Daily reported that sophomore tailback Torrey Mack is no longer enrolled in the University. He previously faced academic probation, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Jan. 30 incident was not Wallace’s first encounter with Harrisonburg Police, The Washington Post reported yesterday. Online court files confirmed the Post’s report that Wallace was arrested at James Madison Sept. 17 for underage purchase and possession of alcohol. Harrisonburg courts ruled Wallace guilty in absentia and suspended his license for six months. The conviction also imposed a $500 fine, which Wallace has yet to pay. That incident occurred during a Virginia bye-week, and Wallace started Virginia’s next game against Virginia Military Institute. He played in each of the team’s remaining games.

It is unclear whether alcohol was involved in the recent incident. Beyond the alleged verbal altercation, Kelly could not offer another motive for the players’ anger or entrance to the party.

“We didn’t want them at our party,” Kelly said. “We didn’t want to fight them. We didn’t know why they wanted to fight. It just seemed like a totally random act of violence.”

“Last night, an unknown individual or individuals chalked words on our campus that disparaged members of various racial and ethnic groups, including African American and white,” Mark Nelson, vice president for student affairs and vice provost, said in a statement the University released Wednesday afternoon.

“We believe that this could have been an attempt to assert First Amendment rights,” Nelson said. “The words were removed as soon as they were discovered.”

Dexter Strong, a senior majoring in religious studies, said he saw the remnants of the word “nigger” chalked on the Quad.

“I thought it was interesting to me and felt that the chalking stemmed from the situation that happened with Justin [Zimmerman],” he said. “My reaction to the chalking and the recent incidents was to let it roll off my back and try not to allow it to make me upset. I don’t think ignorant comments like that should be given a response, and I think the best response is no response. I think that by giving those persons a voice is similar to putting gas on a fire, than evading it with water.”

Joshua Berry, a junior majoring in psychology, said he saw some of the chalkings, and he said he continued walking and tried not to pay attention to the words as well.

“My reaction to the chalking I saw was just ‘Wow, there are people that are really taking this out of hand,’” Berry said. “I saw the chalking written in front of Gallalee Hall, and it appeared that people had tried to wash it off, but you could see they were writing the beginning of the First Amendment.”

The University’s statement continued to say that UA supports the First Amendment. However, the words were mean-spirited and unacceptable.

“As members of the UA community, the majority of our faculty, staff and students reject the notion that this type of behavior reflects our collective experience,” Nelson said in the statement. “As a community, we respect and value each member of the UA family, and I trust that we will make decisions that reinforce and reflect that commitment.”

Ashley Johnson, a junior majoring in journalism, said she witnessed maintenance washing off the words.

“I was walking right by the Round House, and maintenance was just scrubbing around their golf carts,” Johnson said. “UAPD came running up said something like, ‘We found more over here.’”

David Fernandez, a senior majoring in business management, said he was walking from Lloyd Hall to Bidgood Hall and saw the word “kike” first.

“Did I just see what I thought I saw?” Fernandez said. “I looked around to see if I could find some context.”

Fernandez said he saw “First Amendment” written near by the word and continued to walk over to Gorgas Library where he saw the word “nigger.”

“It wasn’t something I was really prepared to deal with at 9 o’clock in the morning,” Fernandez said. “It wasn’t the way I expected to start my day.”

After his class, Fernandez said he went to take a picture around 10 a.m., but the chalking had been washed away. Fernandez said he was disappointed in the chalkings but not surprised.

“Given the things that went on this weekend, I can’t say I didn’t expect it,” Fernandez said. “Definitely not the first time I’ve seen or heard something like this out in public. Don’t expect it to be the last.”

Strong said that he thinks the University is handling all of the situations properly.

“I think the University is responding to these incidences well, and I think they are handling it the way they should be,” Strong said. “The e-mails that have followed the incidences send the message to individuals that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. It means that those persons that seek to isolate others and make them feel lesser will face negative and warranted consequences.”

However, Fernandez said he felt that more needed to be done.

“People need to stop acting like it’s something new,” he said. “We need to make progress on this issue.”

Brittney Knox and Victor Luckerson contributed to this report.

At a meeting held Tuesday evening at the Lorax Manner on 1648 Alder St., approximately 16 individuals gathered to discuss what they view to be the danger to students posed by the creation of another police force in Eugene, most notably because this new department would have the potential to carry firearms, as outlined in two bills under review by the Oregon State Senate.

State Bills 116 and 405, if passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and in turn approved by the Oregon University System, would allow for DPS officers to carry firearms and Tasers with proper training from the Department of Public Safety Training and Standards. University and DPS officials have in the past expressed their support of such a move.

The weapons issue is not the only potential change that could be brought about by SB 116 and SB 405, but it was the primary issue focused on at yesterday’s meeting. At a town hall meeting on Feb. 2, DPS Chief Doug Tripp emphasized that both bills would also enable his department to receive more training and be more effective in serving the University community. Impact statements released by the Oregon University System showed there would be little financial impact on the University, and the bill would also enable DPS to conduct independent crime investigations without relying on the Eugene Police Department.

The Lorax meeting was informally led by ASUO President Amelie Rousseau and Students for a Sensible Drug Policy member Sam Chapman. Both cited the need to raise awareness of this topic among the University community.

Early in the meeting, Rousseau said the move to an armed and sworn department was unnecessary to an already safe campus not in need of a police department.

Chapman said the University is promoting the Campus Policing Initiative as a way to protect students but hadn’t asked students what they thought about the issue.

University junior Caleb Palmer said he was concerned about the ability of a sworn agency on campus to investigate and charge students for issues like drug use and possession.

“I’m worried about drug arrests,” Palmer said. “I’m worried about a normal student arrested for just smoking a joint in the dorms and being arrested and their (financial aid) will be ruined on frivolous charges.”

The meeting largely revolved around specific actions that could be taken to publicly oppose the Campus Policing Initiative and the pending bills. The main decisions to come out of the meetings seemed to be the need for a petition-signing campaign, which would start immediately with the goal of obtaining 3,000 signatures, and a public demonstration against the Campus Policing Initiative, which would ideally attract 200 attendees.

The Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats has helped drive down illegal entries and pressure cross-border smuggling organizations operating in the Sonora-Arizona corridor, said Bersin at a news conference Tuesday at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

The alliance, launched in September 2009, consists of 60 federal, state, local and tribal law agencies in Arizona working to disrupt criminal organizations, he said.

Statistics show “these efforts are making a difference in the lives of the people of Arizona,” said Bersin, commissioner of a branch of Homeland Security responsible for security at and between the ports of entry. “We have more work to do, but there’s been significant progress made to date.”

In making his case, he pointed to a six-year decrease in apprehensions of illegal border crossers and an increase in drug, cash and weapons seizures along the U.S.-Mexico border and steady or declining violent crime rates in U.S. border communities.

But critics say Bersin’s repeated claims that the border is more secure are inaccurate, and that he is only trying to score political points. The Dec. 14 fatal shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Nogales and the March 2010 fatal shooting of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz on his ranch northeast of Douglas illustrate the danger. Both cases remain unsolved.

The fact that Arizona still accounts for about half of all apprehensions and marijuana seizures made along the U.S.-Mexico border shows the state remains the epicenter for cross-border criminal activity, said Patrick Bray, spokesman for the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association.

“Our folks continue to live with fear and anxiety and anger over this issue,” Bray said. “The federal government has failed all of them.”

Since its September 2009 launch, Bersin said the alliance has:

–Made 270,000 apprehensions of illegal border crossers between the ports of entry.

–Turned away 14,000 people at the ports of entry who were determined to be ineligible.

–Seized 1.6 million pounds of marijuana.

–Seized 3,800 pounds of cocaine.

–Seized 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine.

–Seized $13 million in illegal cash going south into Mexico.

Senators voted 52-17 to approve a resolution in opposition of Florida Senate Bill 234, which, if passed, would allow guns on college campuses.

A resolution is a piece of legislation that expresses the Senate’s formal opinion but takes no action.

Senators against the bill were split on whether to oppose the bill completely or to postpone the vote until more research was conducted to gauge student opinion.

Sen. Carly Wilson, who represents the Unite Party, was in opposition of the resolution.

Wilson, who is also the chairwoman of the UF College Republicans, said students have a right to carry a weapon if they choose to because it is protected by the Constitution.

“This is not rocket science — this is the Second Amendment,” she said.

Dave Schneider, the Progress Party candidate for Student Body president, said he was against the idea of guns on campus.

He said he would prefer that new legislation be brought before the Senate calling for the prohibition of assault rifles for the UF Police Department in light of the shooting of graduate student Kofi Adu-Brempong last spring.

“Weapons don’t have a place at an educational institution,” Schneider said.

Senators also voted to postpone the vote on a transparency bill so a committee could first investigate the legality of the legislation.

The bill would have made all Student Government and Senate voting records and meetings available on the SG website.

Some senators were concerned about whether future employees would be able to check on their votes later, while those in favor of the bill said the senators had nothing to hide.

A bipartisan transparency committee will discuss on the legality of the bill before it can be brought back to the Senate floor.

The press conference opened up with Anderson reiterating her sympathy to friends and family of victim Jamail Johnson, as well as anyone who affected by the situation.

Anderson said the campus flags would fly at half-mast and that grief counseling is available to students.

“We’ve received hundreds of calls, e-mails and notes showing interest to give assistance. It shows what a community can accomplish when it comes together,” she said.

Anderson said Johnson is the third student death she has experienced since her days as vice president of Student Affairs.
“It’s the hardest thing you’ll have to do and the worst thing you’ll have to do,” she said.

Anderson expressed her appreciation to Kasich for reaching out and offering his assistance in any way that he could.

“Youngstown State University is an oasis of safety. We believe that we have model safety that needs to be duplicated in the city,” she said. “We must instill the value of life in our young people.”

Williams said that with “tragedy comes opportunity.”

Williams was also appreciative of Kasich’s response. Williams sent a list of what he felt needed to be done in the wake of the shootings and was impressed that Kasich came with a list of solutions.

Items on the list include modifying penalties for the improper use of gunfire and keeping the most violent criminals incarcerated.

“The life lost will not be lost in vain,” Williams said.
Kasich mentioned that there are plans to increase the relationship between the Mahoning Valley and the Ohio State Highway Patrol, as well as the department of public safety, with the goal of bringing a feeling of safety to the community.

Kasich said that the Mahoning Valley’s “best days are ahead.”
“Someone takes a gun in front of a building and opens fire, I cannot explain it,” he said. “I cannot promise the moon, but there are some things we can do to help.”

Another official from YPD said the shooting is “under investigation,” and they’re not sure if the shooting at the Love Lounge, which occurred early this morning on Federal Street, and this shooting are related.

YSU Board of Trustees member Harry Meshel said he heard about the shooting via fax this morning, as he does not have e-mail. He received the same information included in the e-mail via fax.

Meshel said it is important that people realize that this is not an “on-campus” issue, but that it still affects the YSU community.

“If the people think it’s on campus, it means that police are directly responsible for the behavior of people in and around that property,” Meshel said. “It’s too easy to say, ‘That’s a campus problem.’”

Meshel said he is saddened by the news because we should be focusing on the progress made in the community particularly within the minorities.

“Very unfortunately for [the shooting] to happen during black cultural month when we’re honoring the advances made by the African-American community in our country and in our community,” he said. “That’s significantly harmful.”

Meshel also said he doesn’t want the blame on a YSU student if the shooter was someone who crashed the party.

“When fraternity parties are held, a lot of people crash those,” Meshel said. “[I hope] we see clearly the distinction between a home on the North Side that is populated by university students or if it’s a fraternity home then there is a lot of responsibility for what goes on in their fraternity home.”

Meshel said that regardless of the specifics, it is still unfortunate that a life was lost.

“We’ve had a pretty controlled environment there, if you will, for behavioral problems, we’ve not had any serious behavioral problems for a long, long, long, time,” he said. “Those problems if they occur on campus are effectively dealt with immediately by authorities.”

Tina Creighton, Media Relations specialist for Humility of Mary Health Partners, the health system in which St. Elizabeth Health Center is a part of, said due to privacy laws, no information can be released to the media until 48 hours has passed and the families have had the chance to review the privacy information.

Rodger Brown, a neighbor walking by the house with his cane, said the group of guys living at the house are a good group of guys and even gave him a ride home one night.

“Once I get back up to my feet, all I see is this young man laying on his face, with smoke coming out of his body,” Wagner said. “I don’t even think he saw it coming.”

Johnson was killed in the shooting, and 11 others, including Wagner and five more YSU students, were injured, according to a statement released by YSU.

Wagner had never seen a man killed. In the moments after Johnson fell in the doorway, a fleeing crowd of 35 to 40 people trampled Wagner. What he had hoped were merely warning shots had taken Johnson’s life and left Wagner unknowingly bleeding.

“I didn’t know I was shot till I got to the car,” Wagner said.

Wagner exited the house through a back door, entering the bloodstained backyard where he lost his car keys.

Wagner waited in the cold with others, some YSU students.

YSU freshman DeShaun McDonald arrived at the party around 2:30 a.m. and described the atmosphere as calm and relaxed until a physical altercation ensued.

“A bunch of people just started pushing each other,” McDonald said.

As the fight began to escalate, McDonald and his friend decided it was time to leave. But before they could leave, the shooter was pushed out of the house, only to immediately charge back in.

That’s when the gunshots started.

“As soon as we begin to move, all I hear, it’s just like pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, like at least 12 or more times,” McDonald said.

McDonald said he was patted down before entering the party, and he did not understand how the shooter was able to bring a gun.

As McDonald made his way to the exit, he and his friend ran into what they believe was the body of Johnson.

“We both end up looking down, and then we see the dude right there, and he is just laying there, just bleeding,” McDonald said, adding that a crowd formed around the body. “They just wanted him to live.”

Jared Buker, a YSU student and president of the Alpha Phi Delta fraternity had also attended the party and expressed his grief about the tragedy.

“This is such an unbelievable tragedy. Our hearts go out to the family and fraternity brothers,” Buker said. “This is really a wake-up call for the entire Greek system to realize how much we need to stick together and to keep everyone safe.”

Witnesses said the altercation began when a woman pushed a bystander, inciting a group of eight partygoers to retaliate. The woman left at the request of a friend but returned roughly 10 minutes later with increased numbers.

“Everyone saw the gun,” Wagner said.

A man wearing a red skullcap and a green jacket brandished the gun in the house. After being forced outside, Johnson went to the door to defuse the situation.

Johnson’s efforts to maintain the peace cost him his life.

“It took a lot of bravery to break up a fight when a man got a gun,” Wagner said of Johnson’s last moments.

Two minutes after the man left the party, he turned to the doorway and fired at least a dozen shots into the house.

Wagner and others were taken from the scene to St. Elizabeth Health Center.

At St. Elizabeth Health Center, Ezra Woodberry was texting Johnson. She had become ominously sick to her stomach, a witness at the hospital said. That witness was Darlene Wagner, there to check on the condition of her son, Jordon Wagner.

Darlene Wagner told Woodberry that Johnson would not be responding to her texts. She told Woodberry that Johnson – a friend she had spoken with just an hour ago – had passed away.

Editor’s note: Jared Buker is a staff member at The Jambar. His comments were necessary given his position as an eyewitness and president of APD. Darlene Wagner is a former staff member of The Jambar. Her comments were necessary due to her maternal relationship with the victim, Jordon Wagner.

YSU student Jamail Johnson was killed in the shooting exchange and the 11 wounded are being treated at the St. Elizabeth Medical Center.

In a statement released by the university, police are “in the process of identifying suspects.” YSU president Cynthia Anderson appeared at the hospital to be with students and their families, according to the statement.

“I want to express my deepest sympathies to the family of the student who died in this tragic act of violence, and to ask everyone to keep him and the other students in their thoughts and prayers,” President Anderson said. “It is a sad day for the YSU family,” Anderson said in the statement.

In a YSU text alert, YSUPD Chief John Gocala reported no threat to the campus but that YSU police would increase its presence on campus.

Stay tuned to the Jambar for more information on this story as it develops today.

Just three days later, Jared Loughner shot and killed six people, including a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, in Tucson, Ariz., at a public event.

It was after these events that Nebraska state Sen. Mark Christensen, of District 44, introduced a bill to the Nebraska Legislature that would allow teachers, administration officials and security officers to carry concealed weapons in public schools and universities if passed. Currently, only police officers can carry weapons on school campuses.

The bill has been on Christensen’s mind for some time.

“I had looked at it a couple years ago, but I felt the timing was right for discussion,” Christensen said.

If passed, the bill would allow the governing boards of school districts or colleges decide if teachers or other officials could carry concealed weapons on campus. Those employees would be required to obtain a concealed weapon permit, along with training and learning their responsibilities. Concealed weapon permits have been legal in Nebraska since 2006.

To Christensen, the bill is a matter of safety. Schools are meant to provide a safe, protective atmosphere, he said, and allowing teachers to carry weapons for the purpose of defense would help that goal.

“If someone comes in with a gun, how can you best protect (the students)?” Christensen said.

The bill also provides for local control of the law, if passed. School boards would still be left with the ultimate decision of whether to allow concealed weapons in their schools, and would be free to reduce, limit, and control the law’s provisions however it sees fit.

“It could be forced to be locked in a drawer, or locked in an administration office, or it could have to be on the person,” Christensen said. “Whatever they decide.”

Although he believes in the bill’s goal, Christensen is not holding his breath on its passage.

“It’s a more controversial one. I don’t think it’s one the (Judicial) committee likes, to be honest,” he said.

But according to him, that’s OK, because if tragedy does strike and the bill is not law, “we know exactly who to target.”

He also felt the attempt was worth it, because even if many school districts did not approve it for themselves, at least there would be discussion.

Christensen compared schools without means of protection to banks, which have restrictions on armed employees similar to public schools. He equated this lack of arms to a bank saying “Come rob us.”

According to the senator, he’s gotten mixed reactions with his bill.

“I’ve had people say ‘great bill’ to ‘this is the craziest bill I’ve ever seen,’” Christensen said. “I’ve had a number of superintendents tell me they’d like to carry. They’d like to protect their building, their teachers, their students.”

Angelo Passarelli, governmental relations officer with Millard Public Schools, said the district did not have an official stance on the bill. However, he did offer his own take.

“Personally, I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Passarelli said. “I don’t think it would’ve helped.”

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has no position on the bill, according to Kelly Bartling, manager of news at UNL. However, she did detail the faculty’s feelings.

“We like the law the way it is,” Bartling said. “It seems like it would offer a lot of opportunity to bring a lot of weapons on campus. We are not comfortable with that. We would be very concerned.”

UNL does have its own armed police force, and Bartling said that weapons outside of those who are trained were unnecessary.

Bill Kuehn, director of security for Lincoln Public Schools and retired National Guardsman, agreed. Each of the Lincoln high schools has an armed school resource officer, or SRO. Kuehn did not like the idea of more people being armed beyond those officers.

“I don’t really feel like it’s good for a school environment,” he said. “(Teachers) aren’t trained to take on that liability and responsibility. That’s not their main profession. It brings a lot of dangerous possibilities.”

Lincoln and Omaha police departments were unavailable to comment.

Students, faculty and staff were notified by emergency alert text message, e-mail and with banners on all main NMU pages.

“Campus safety is and will continue to be our prime motive. Upon receipt of a possible threat we activated our emergency response protocol as we took this threat extremely seriously,” said President Les Wong at a press conference earlier in the day. “No one ever wants to confront these types of threats, but we were prepared.”

Local K-12 schools were closed between 10 a.m. and noon, letting students out early in response to the threat. Marquette General Hospital was also placed on lock down, only having five operating entrances all patrolled by police officers.

Students were informed around noon that Public Safety had the situation under control, but buildings remained on lockdown. Students in the dorms were allowed to go to the dining halls but asked not to leave otherwise. Though during the press conference at 3:30 p.m., it was said that because they had not identified a suspect, it was still considered an ongoing investigation.

Rumors were found on various social networking sites, including Twitter and Facebook. During the day, some students were afraid there was a hostage situation on campus.

“At no time did we have a hostage situation on campus,” said Director of Public Safety and Police Services Mike Bath during the press conference.

Bath said that police officials were speaking to a couple of individuals, students and nonstudents, but all lived in the county. He didn’t provide many specifics to protect the investigation.

Students received a message again at 8:12 p.m. that there was no longer an imminent threat and that “normal business operations” would resume today, Feb. 3.

Police agencies, who were involved in the investigations, including the FBI, identified that the threat was not made on campus and that a similar threat that had been made to other universities. Though they are continuing investigations to learn more about what happened, the various agencies have concluded that students are safe to attend classes today, though Public Safety patrols will be increased as an added precaution.

“We would never open the campus if we did not feel like it was safe to go to class and to go to work. We just wouldn’t do that,” said Cindy Paavola, director of NMU marketing and communications.

Madison received nearly 12 inches of snow between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, forcing the cancellation of city non-essential services, Madison Metro routes and University of Wisconsin classes on Wednesday.

Though 175 snow removal vehicles began clearing the streets early on Tuesday night, emergency services responded to an elevated number of carbon monoxide leaks in Madison residences, Lori Wirth, Madison Fire Department spokesperson, said.

At the city level, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz issued an order Tuesday evening to close all city offices, and city parks and libraries.

Dane County officials also advised residents not to travel in the wake of a blizzard warning.

Dane County Department of Emergency Management spokesperson John McLellan said the blizzard lead to more than 100 emergency calls for stranded cars, some of which could not be reached until late Wednesday morning.

He added road conditions made it difficult for emergency vehicles to respond to calls, particularly for Madison city fire trucks.

Walker called on the Wisconsin National Guard to assist in rescuing citizens who were trapped in a stranded bus and to assist motorists trapped in snowdrifts on the Interstate.

He also declared a state of emergency for 29 counties and ordered the closing all state buildings to the public for Wednesday. Despite the weather conditions, Assembly and Senate hearings were held as scheduled.

UW System Board of Regents President Charles Pruitt said because the storm was not as intense in some parts of northern Wisconsin, the decision to cancel classes would be left to the individual chancellors.

To the great relief of many Badgers, UW Chancellor Biddy Martin was one of the chancellors to cancel classes.

Students on the UW campus found reason to celebrate the closure of the university with the second massive “Battle for Bascom” snowball fight, where Lakeshore once again reigned victorious.

The hill was crowded with thousands of students wielding cafeteria trays, makeshift slingshots and the battle cry of vuvuzelas during the brawl between Southeast and Lakeshore dormitory residents in celebration of the snow day.

Though the fight was slated to begin at 1:30 p.m., participants said the brawl began with the first charge by Southeast residents shortly after 1 p.m.

Martin also turned out to see the historic snowball fight, lending her support for a safe and fun celebration of a day free from classes from a healthy distance near the statue of Abraham Lincoln.

UW freshman Justin Michuad, one of the creators of the “Battle for Bascom” Facebook event, said he knew there would be another snowball fight after the snow day was officially announced.

He said it was exciting to see the numbers of attendees grow quickly as word continued to spread and the event grew larger than he had imagined. The event garnered 4,920 positive responses on Facebook.

“We kept refreshing the page and saw more people were planning on attending,” he said. “After banking on a snow day, we wanted to get the word out.”

Michuad said he was in the front lines of the battle for most of the fight and was impressed by how prepared both Lakeshore and Southeast residents came to the event.

While some students preferred to observe the fray from the sidewalks running parallel to the hill, others preferred more flamboyant involvement in the snowy melee — braving the cold in bikini swimsuits, a banana costume and Badger gear galore.

Participants also came equipped with a multitude of innovative devices to enhance the battle.

Though cafeteria trays used as body armor or sleds are a mainstay for winter on the UW campus, snowball guns, pizza boxes and slingshots were employed to make sure no one left Bascom untouched by a dusting of snow.

Evan Porter, a UW sophomore, said Lakeshore residents seemed to arrive at the snowball fight with an edge because Southeast tends to arrive late.

“Lakeshore is just unafraid, they always start by taking the top,” he said. “People’s craziness just adds to the excitement and gets people more into the fight.”

He also said the recent snowfall did not allow for optimal packing conditions to make snowballs but there was also fewer icy projectiles, a leading factor in many bloody noses and other minor casualties.

UW sophomore Matt Krentz said though the “Battle for Bascom” may have begun as an evenly matched fight, the Lakeshore residents forced Southeast participants off the hill shortly before 3 p.m.

The winning neighborhood showcased their Badger pride with a celebratory round of “Varsity” at the top of the hill.

The student, Andres Luis Marrero, had been asked by the woman’s boyfriend to beat her until she miscarried.

Marrero, 19, received a phone call from Devin Nickels, a high school friend and Florida State University student, after Nickels’ 17-year-old girlfriend was reported pregnant.

Nickels,18, allegedly desperate to ensure the baby was not born, concocted a plan with Marrero to make his girlfriend miscarry, said the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.

Nickels wanted Marrero to pretend to be an armed robber and eventually punch the woman– who was at the beginning of her second trimester– in the stomach to end the pregnancy.

He offered to pay Marrero $200 for his actions, but Marrero did not accept. Instead, he agreed to carry out the assault for free.

At 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 1, Nickels drove his girlfriend to the woods outside an apartment complex in New Port Richey.

Marrero got into the backseat of Nickels’ car minutes later. Soon after, he stepped out, then came back wearing a mask, forcing Nickels and his girlfriend out of the car at gunpoint.

Nickels’ girlfriend– whose name has not been released by the sherrif’s office– had never met Marrero.

She begged him not to hurt her because she was pregnant. He did not listen, and instead, according to police, “began to kick and punch her several times in the stomach and back while stating, ‘This is how much I care, b—-.’”

After he was done, Marrero ordered Nickels and his girlfriend to not move until he had left. He then took off, officials said.

The girlfriend was hospitalized. According to a report, she is still pregnant and the fetus was ultimately unharmed.

Soon after the attack, investigators showed the girlfriend several photos of possible suspects. Among the photos was one of Marrero.

She recognized from when he first entered the car unmasked.

Marrero, a Land O’ Lakes resident, was arrested Thursday Jan. 27. Authorities charged him with armed kidnapping and aggravated battery on a pregnant female.

He was held at the Pasco jail until being released Saturday on $60,000 bail.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Marrero and Nickels had no criminal record or previous arrests.

“He’s been an outstanding kid all his life,” Marrero’s father told The St. Petersburg Times on Tuesday afternoon. “I have no idea where this is coming from.”

Nickels, a Lutz resident, was arrested on campus at FSU, in his room in Salley Hall, Monday morning.

He has been charged with solicitation to commit aggravated battery. He is currently being held at the Leon County jail, awaiting transfer to Pasco.

Hours after abandoning Nickels and his girlfriend in the woods, Marrero signed on Facebook and posted, “Damn was last nite fun a– hell. 2011″ on his wall.

His Facebook account is now inactive.

It meant leaving behind both her family and the growing revolution she supports, though staying may put her status as a UC student in jeopardy.

“Leaving Egypt in the midst of all this, packing up my bags and leaving my family, I didn’t see it as an option,” Kamel said. “As someone from Cairo, how people have come together has been something incredible to witness, and I’ve never felt as proud of the Egyptian people as I’ve felt in the past week. This is history, and it’s being made right in front of my own eyes.”

Kamel’s decision to stay and the simultaneous removal of UC community members – including 19 students – Tuesday afternoon came after eight days of protests across Egypt as citizens of the nation called for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

Following a travel advisory for Egypt issued by the U.S. State Department, UC affiliates, including an archeological team from UCLA, were evacuated from Cairo Tuesday afternoon. According to Haydn Dick, executive director of the UCLA International Education Office, the removal is part of university policy governing UC study abroad programs.

“When we run study abroad programs, whenever there’s political unrest that’s a concern,” Dick said in an e-mail. “When the State Department upgraded to a travel warning over the weekend and started suggesting that Americans go home, it’s standard policy in the UC system that we will cancel a UC program and get students out of there.”

Kamel, a sophomore international student studying development studies at UC Berkeley who returned to Egypt in the fall to study abroad at the American University in Cairo, did not evacuate with the rest of the Education Abroad Program – making her status as a UC student unclear because staying means she has officially withdrawn from the university, which could also result in the cancellation of her F1 student visa, she said.

She added, however, that the decision was one she does not regret because she is able to watch and participate as her country stages a “people’s revolution.” On Tuesday morning, Kamel joined thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square, describing it as “an unforgettable moment in (her) life.”

“In terms of the solidarity and the camaraderie and the patriotism, you feel it when you’re walking in the streets, and it is something that is amazing to see,” she said. “This is a revolution of the people that took to the streets and got together on Facebook, on Twitter and decided they were going to do this. That’s what this revolution is about.”

According to Barira Rashid, a UC Berkeley junior social welfare major who was among the students evacuated Tuesday afternoon, “being torn from Egypt was extremely disheartening.”

Rashid said though she did not join in the protests because of program safety concerns, she spent days stuck in her apartment, located in the heart of Cairo, watching the daily protests from her seventh floor balcony.

“There were thousands and thousands of people – women in burqas and niqabs, children, young men, old grandpas, people from the lower class, people from the upper class – all standing there supporting each other and this cause they were willing to lay down their lives for,” she said. “The strength of these people was incredible.”

Jordan Bach-Lombardo of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.

Are you currently studying abroad in Egypt and where? Since when have you been there?

I was studying abroad in Egypt. I was to attend American University in Cairo for the 2011 spring semester. I had arrived Jan. 21, and left Feb. 1.

What’s your living situation like? Homestay/apartment/roommates? Where in Cairo?

I was living in the Zamalek dorms, located on the Zamalek island neighborhood near downtown Cairo (Tahrir Square was right across the Nile from us). It was a dorm of largely American/international students, separated by genders (one half of the building was men’s, one half women’s).

Can you describe what you have experienced in Egypt so far? Have you experienced any of the violence/riots/etc.? What was it like? Is it scary? What have your friends experienced?

In terms of experiencing the sights of Cairo, not a lot happened. We had a week of orientation on the AUC campus, which is located 20 miles outside of Cairo in New Cairo, and most days the orientation ran from 9 to 3, with us catching a 1.5 hour shuttle ride back to the dorms … not a lot of time to explore.

On Tuesday, Jan. 25, the start of the protests, a tour of Old Cairo/Islamic Cairo was arranged for us. We had at least 15 plainclothes cops/security officers following us (about a group of 100, mostly American, students), as well as quite a few regular police officers. The day was supposed to last until 5 pm. Around 1, we were rushed through Khan el Khalili (the big, famous bazaar in Cairo) and around 1:30 were loaded onto our buses saying we were all being taken back to New Cairo campus … not the dorms. We were told by our RAs this was simply a precautionary measure and that we were all safe, but we’d have to stay on campus for an hour before the buses could take us home.

Hearing this, Eva Rasho, Macarena Torres-Girao and I (all AU students), went to sit a mere 30 feet away from where everyone else was sitting so we could chat and enjoy the view of the gardens at AUC. AUC’s campus is literally the most gorgeous campus I have ever seen. Knocks AU’s socks off.

Anyway, after 20 minutes we head back to the main plaza and everyone is gone. We’re told by someone that the bus left 10 minutes ago. We of course panicked, but believed another, regular shuttle would take us back. At that point it was 3:55, and we were told another shuttle would arrive at 4. We get on this shuttle, and 10 minutes out, the shuttle turns back and the driver says we are stuck on campus … no shuttles are running to Zamalek since the roads have been blocked (we drive through downtown to get back to Zamalek). We began calling RAs, orientation leaders and others … and are told we will probably have to spend the night on campus.

However, the three of us as well as two other girls left behind did not want this to happen. We called a cab, and spent 2.5 hours driving to our dorms. We had to take a circumnavigated route, going halfway across Cairo in order to find an unblocked bridge onto our island.

For the past week we’ve been on curfew set by the government, usually from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. During the day we would walked around Zamalek, since we could not access the rest of town really. At night, we’d sit on the rooftop terrace and here gunshots and tear gas grenades echoing through the city, because Cairo, a city of 18 million, essentially became a ghost town at night. The dusk calls to prayer echoed throughout the city, being the only sounds beyond those shots we’d hear.

We’d watch billowing smoke rise from buildings that were set on fire/being looted, and would look down below as we watched people who lived in the Zamalek neighborhood arm themselves with sticks and pipes, the only means of defense against looters. Tear gas would waft up to us along the wind, making our throats burn and our eyes water.

One night, I can’t remember which now, we saw a car get smashed in from the terrace. Another night, I think Sunday night, around 2 a.m., RAs came pounding on our doors telling us to lock them from the inside – something was going on outside. It turned out to be a false alarm, but nonetheless, for many students who left the next day (Monday) for evacuation, it only confirmed the need to leave Cairo.

As for myself, I never felt in danger on the island. If I had ventured into the protests I would have felt different I’m sure, but if I could have stayed I would. AUC however had already delayed class a week, and the day we left said they were delaying it another week – AU said if the semester became too truncated, we would not receive credit if we stayed. None of us could risk staying and not getting credit/no refund, so we left. It was not due to the protests that we evacuated, but due to academic uncertainty.

What’s happening to the students in the AU program now? Are they remaining in Egypt for the rest of the semester or are they being sent home?

For AUC, 7 of the 8 of us have evacuated (we weren’t really in contact the with the last person). Macarena and I are going to the AMIDEAST Rabat program, leaving Istanbul for Morocco tomorrow. Hannah and Kaitlin are studying abroad in Istanbul and are already here (they left Monday night, we left Tuesday afternoon).

Eva is returning to D.C., however it is up to the professors whether she can get into classes, and many professors have shown reluctance at letting her reenter due to their feeling that she could not catch up, even though she is willing to do the work and is in a dire situation.

Patrick is unsure yet, but may go to the UAE Sharjah program or back to D.C.. Finally, Greg is planning attend AU Rome. We’ve all been evacuated and all ended up in Istanbul.

But more information on the AMIDEAST program: It already started, however, half of AMIDEAST Cairo is going to the same program, so we’ll all start behind together. I will be doing home stay and the program ends May 14, early than AUC’s May 26. Luckily, I booked a one-way ticket to Cairo to being so do not have to worry about cancellations/connections/reimbursement for that flight.

Are you getting reimbursed for any part of your study abroad program?

For AUC, since we did not start classes we get a full reimbursement for our tuition, which will go to our new programs. For dorm costs, we are unsure, but are hoping we’ll be mostly reimbursed. Most of us also paid for trips arranged by AUC, such as trips to Alexandria and Sinai that were obviously canceled and we hope to be reimbursed for those as well. We are unsure how long this process will take.

Do you plan to return to Egypt when things have calmed down?

Macarena and I plan to return to Cairo at the end of our Rabat program for two weeks to actually see Egypt, and visit our Egyptian friends we made there. Hopefully things are calm by then.

Is there anything else you think is interesting to add?

As much as this was an interesting experience, never did I once feel unsafe. More than anything, the worst part was us not knowing what to do, what was happening or where we’d go. It was a state of limbo for a number of days, and everyone was feeling the pressure. I may have a stomach ulcer now.

“It’s an annual issue,” University police Deputy Chief Chuck Miner said. “Most college campuses have issues with homeless individuals when the weather gets colder.”

Three or four times a week, University police run into people who are not students or faculty in campus buildings trying to sleep, find shelter or stay after hours. When buildings close, security monitors, staff or students sometimes call police to escort people away from campus.

Miner said police do not simply drop homeless people on the street.

“Many times, they’ll give them a ride to an area shelter.”

Coffman Union and the West Bank are hot spots for the homeless to hang out, Miner said.

University police reported 27 trespassing incidents at Coffman Union in 2009. In 2010, there were 16 reports by November.

Anyone is welcome in Coffman during its open hours as long as they don’t interfere with students or faculty, said Jason Hancock, associate director of Student Unions and Activities. A more visible police force has curbed the presence of homeless people in Coffman, Hancock said.

University police sometimes encounter someone who has an outstanding arrest warrant or is on a trespass warning list — a roster of a couple dozen people who have been told to stay off campus.

University student Mike Wacker is friends with one man who, after losing his housing, spent time hanging around campus.

Wacker said he met the man as a neighbor in Dinkytown four years ago. After the man lost his room, Wacker’s neighbor would spend nights at the Salvation Army and days at the University before he was barred from campus for stealing books.

University Security Monitor Dan Hassoun said monitors know the faces of many trespassers.

“We have a ‘who’s who’ of people we tend to see,” Hassoun said. “There are a few we know by name.”

Hassoun said security monitors commonly run into individuals sleeping or hiding in bathrooms when they are closing down a building. He said the monitors usually ask those individuals to leave, and “nine times out of 10, they are compliant.”

Nursing student Rachel Miller, who is a member of Blessed are the Poor, a social service student group, said she often sees people who appear to be homeless in the West Bank tunnel system. She used to give McDonald’s gift cards to some familiar faces.

“There are about 10 people that I see regularly,” Miller said.

Last week, a custodian called University police after cigarette smoke was seen coming out of a bathroom in Eddy Hall. Two men were smoking in one of the stalls.

Miner said the homeless visitors are often struggling with mental illness or addiction. Still, he and Hassoun agreed the majority of them are amiable.

“Most vagrants on campus are very nice. They don’t give us any trouble,” Hassoun said.

Duke, and universities across the country, is monitoring what could happen to study abroad and summer program opportunities in Egypt if pro-democracy protests escalate despite Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s announcement Tuesday that he will not seek re-election.

Students across the world are drawn to Cairo—the political center of more than a week of protests against Mubarak’s authoritarian regime—and its cultural and intellectual opportunities. One Duke graduate student has been evacuated from the region, and although no undergraduates are currently studying abroad in Egypt, the University is watching the protests closely because their outcome will likely determine the fate of future study abroad opportunities.

Sophomore Amir Abdu, whose father is from Egypt, said he hopes Mubarak lives up to his promise to not run for re-election.

“My hope is that the Egyptian youth will get what they want—a democratic government that promotes freedom,” he said.

In the meantime, administrators at Duke are monitoring the situation’s developments. Margaret Riley, director of the Global Education Office for Undergraduates, wrote in an e-mail that the only program the University currently offers in Egypt is a non-Duke administered program based in Cairo at the American University in Cairo. If a government with radical Islamists at the helm replaces Mubarak’s—or, worse, if the protests escalate into factional warfare—then the University may be forced to halt its study abroad opportunities in Egypt even if it does not wish to do so, she added.

“If the International Travel Oversight Committee determines to add Egypt to the ‘Restricted Regions List,’ then undergraduates would no longer be permitted to study there,” she wrote.

Even without an official warning, some undergraduates are already reconsidering their desire to study in Egypt due to lingering political uncertainty in the country. Some students fear that all study abroad programs in Egypt in the Fall could be canceled if the unrest continues.

“There are three Duke students who have active applications with American University in Cairo for the fall,” Riley wrote. “They are seriously considering other options at this time.”

Study abroad programs for graduate students are also being affected. The lone Duke graduate student studying in Egypt this semester has already been evacuated, as have the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s graduate students, according to The Herald-Sun.

“International SOS arranged for the evacuation of the one current Duke student who was in Egypt this week,” Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations wrote in an e-mail. “[It] also assisted several recent graduates who were in the country on study and research tours.”

Schoenfeld said it is premature for Duke to make any official decision at this time. Any action on Egypt’s status as a study abroad destination should be well-thought out, he noted, because of the nation’s immense archaeological, historical and cultural opportunities. Few countries can match Egypt’s diverse educational opportunities, he added.

“We look at each program and country on a case-by-case basis to balance the risks with the educational value,” he wrote. “It is important not to make general assumptions or decisions based on the events in one particular country.”

The University also has a DukeEngage program based in Cairo, which last year sent about 10 students to work with refugees, disabled youths and community development projects. This will be the program’s fourth summer, and it is set to take place from May 30 to July 29. Representatives for DukeEngage did not respond immediately to requests for comment on whether the program could be canceled if the unrest continues.

The possibility that study abroad opportunities in Cairo will be canceled is particularly striking considering the popularity and success of past programs there. Two Duke students studied in Cairo last semester at AUC. Junior Ross Taggart, one of the students, said he enjoyed his experience.

“I absolutely loved my experience in Egypt,” he wrote in an e-mail, citing the beautiful historical sites and the “wonderful people” he met.

Although Taggart experienced a relatively peaceful and informative stay in Egypt, he said some political tensions were noticeable even last semester.

“Some of my professors [at AUC] talked at length in class about the rampant corruption in the Egyptian government and Mubarak’s blatant manipulation of the electoral process,” he wrote. “Still, elections were held and Mubarak was re-elected while I was there with absolutely no incident that I was aware of.”

Even a complete change of government would not necessarily spell doom for study abroad opportunities in Egypt. The protests are pro-democratic in nature and are led mostly by liberal reformers under the age of 30, despite the attempts of religious organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood to gain a foothold in the movement. If the government is wholly replaced, the transition could be not only peaceful, but also beneficial if democratic reformers lead the government rather than religious groups, Ebrahim Moosa, associate professor of Islamic studies, wrote in an e-mail.

“[The protests in Egypt] will only affect us in the immediate short term since safety and security concerns would be foremost in dispatching students to the region,” he wrote. “Depending on how long these protests drag on, Americans would be welcome once things go back to normal, but as of now we do not know what ‘normal’ means.”

Moosa added that he believes the Muslim Brotherhood is not as ominous a presence as the United States, Israel, some members of the media and Mubarak himself have made it out to be.

“Using the Muslim Brotherhood as a scarecrow has been a red herring used by the Mubarak regime and also sections of our political establishment and media to support the status quo,” he wrote. “If the Egyptian people choose a political party they prefer but one that is not to our liking, we might be able to lament their choice, but we have no right to subvert and block their right to choose freely.”

Moosa added that the United States and Israel should support democracy in Egypt, rather than continue to support Mubarak.

The Egyptian protests are larger than Duke or any one institution. Whatever the outcome, it has the potential to affect millions, for better or worse. The protests have already helped start or sustain similar protests in Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon and—most recently—Jordan. The “domino effect of change” that Moosa cited could very well cause further protests throughout the notoriously volatile region.

Egyptian students at Duke are watching the events closely.

Abdu said he believes radical groups have neither the influence nor the means to seize power once Mubarak steps down.

“Although it is a concern, I have doubts that the Muslim Brotherhood has the popularity or the influence to take control,” he said. “Although they support the demonstrations, the Islamic fundamentalists don’t seem to have an active presence at all.”

Abdu added that he believes a peaceful result is likely.

“Egypt seems to be on the verge of real change, and I have faith that it will achieve a positive result,” he said. “I truly believe that after all the dust has finally settled, my family will be able to enjoy freedom, stability and peace.”

The students, who are in Cairo to participate in BC’s external program at the American University in Cairo, will leave Egypt over the next few days as a part of the U.S. State Department’s optional evacuation of American citizens from Egypt, said Bernd Widdig, director of the Office of International Programs.

“The American University [in Cairo] is coordinating the evacuation in close coordination with the State Department and we anticipate that our students will leave Egypt in the next few days,” Widdig said.

In an e-mail, Widdig said that the OIP has remained in contact with the two students, their parents, and their colleagues at the American University in Cairo since the protests first sent shock waves across the region just over a week ago.

“Since the situation in Cairo remains volatile and the safety of our students is our primary concern, our students will take the offer by the Department of State to be flown out of Egypt to safe haven locations in Europe,” Widdig said.

He said that the OIP would continue to work with officials from the American University in Cairo as the evacuations proceed over the next few days.

The Virginia Tech tragedy is a striking illustration of the baneful effects of gun-free zones. Fortunately, this brand of failed gun control policy is now under attack. Gov. Bob McDonnell sent a letter to the Department of Conservation and Recreation Jan. 14 directing it to desist from enforcing its ban on the open carrying of firearms in state parks. Previously, the right to bear arms in Virginia state parks was restricted to concealed carry permit holders. The recent order, though, allows any individual to openly carry a legally-owned firearm in state parks. McDonnell also favors a measure that would permit both open and concealed carry by law-abiding citizens in state forests.

These changes indicate an encouraging willingness of state lawmakers to relax effete gun control policies. Gun-free zones — which do little more than disarm law-abiding citizens and thereby enable would-be criminals — represent some of the most inane gun control measures ever enacted. After all, the Virginia Tech massacre proves that potential killers are not deterred by regulations prohibiting the carrying of firearms in certain areas.

Gun-free laws create scenarios in which innocent citizens are left defenseless at the hands of lunatics and criminals. These zones are gifts to killers. Apart from the recent shooting in Tucson, economist and popular author John Lott writes that every public shooting he’s studied in the United States in which more than three people were killed has occurred in a gun-free zone. Shootings elsewhere in the world show a similar correlation. In fact, all multiple-victim shootings in western Europe have occurred in gun-free zones, according to the National Review. Killers do not attack crowds at gun shows or police stations. Rather, they often attack areas in which innocent citizens have been rendered defenseless by ill-advised gun control policies.

McDonnell’s recent executive order shows that Virginia may be moving in a direction that may eventually lead to the elimination of gun-free zones altogether. Allowing the full exercise of Second Amendment rights in state parks and forests is an important first step to relax Virginia’s gun control laws, but bolder action is still necessary. McDonnell and the state legislature must work together to eliminate other gun-free zones — including those currently in place at Virginia’s public universities.

Currently, 25 colleges and graduate schools nationwide permit concealed carry on campus by licensed permit holders. Among these schools, there have not been any instance of gun violence, gun theft, threatened gun violence, accidental gun violence or suicide with a gun since the policy was institutionalized. Gun control advocates repeatedly claim that permitting guns on campus would increase the occurrence of gun violence. Although history does not substantiate this contention, it does show that gun-free zones enable mass murderers.

Permitting concealed carry license holders to exercise their Second Amendment rights on campus would be beneficial in many ways. First, it could be a deterrent and preventive mechanism for would-be killers. Second, it could also help reduce occurrences of less serious crimes. U. Virginia, for instance, has been plagued by a rash of violence — ranging from simple assault to murder — against students during the past year and may benefit if the gun-ban were lifted.

Allowing licensed students and professors to carry firearms would enable them to defend themselves when necessary. Because of the nature of crime, law enforcement typically arrives after the fact. During a crime, only the victim has the ability to defend himself. Disarmed university students provide easy targets for sexual assault and theft. An armed victim, however, is a criminal’s worst fear. There is no tenable rationale for denying UVA students and professors the ability to defend themselves.

Curbing gun violence is a noble and worthwhile goal. Gun-free zones, though, have consistently increased violent crime. It is time to discard this irrational and failed policy and replace it with legislation that permits law-abiding citizens to exercise their constitutional rights. The Virginia legislature should take an important step in this direction by requiring public universities to permit concealed carry on their campuses.

Seeberg, a first year Saint Mary’s student, alleged that a Notre Dame student athlete sexually assaulted her on Aug. 31. She committed suicide Sept. 10.

The University had previously declined to comment on the topic, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which prohibits colleges and universities from discussing students’ education records.

“As you know it’s unusual and perhaps unprecedented for me to comment on a case like this,” University President Fr. John Jenkins said in a Dec. 21 interview with The South Bend Tribune. “But I cannot stand by and allow the integrity of Notre Dame to be challenged so publicly.”

University spokesman Dennis Brown said because Notre Dame takes FERPA seriously, it has a policy of not publicly acknowledging the presence of disciplinary investigations.

“We think the principle of privacy is so important that we’re willing to take some of the criticism that comes with that,” Brown said.

The University worked with the accused student in the case of Seeberg’s allegations, however, and decided to speak about the investigation, Brown said.

“The investigation was thorough and careful and I believe that that needs to be understood by all,” Jenkins told The South Bend Tribune. “The main point I want to make is the investigation had integrity. It followed the facts where it led and any results were based on that sort of investigation.”

According to a Dec. 16 press release from the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office, Seeberg alleged sexual battery, or forced touching of her breasts. Seeberg did not make an allegation of rape.

On Sept. 1, Brown said Seeberg went to St. Joseph Regional Medical Center to report a Notre Dame student-athlete assaulted her while they were in his dorm room on the evening of Aug. 31. A Notre Dame Security Police (NDSP) officer, who Brown said has over 35 years of experience and has investigated over 200 sex crime allegations, met Seeberg at the hospital that evening and took a handwritten statement.

The next day, Seeberg asked the officer for a copy of her original statement and said she would like to submit a second statement.

While waiting for Seeberg’s second statement, Brown said the officer spoke with two students who had been with Seeberg and the accused student the evening of the alleged assault.

Seeberg e-mailed that statement to the officer at 9 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 5. Because the following day was Labor Day, Brown said the officer did not view the new statement until Sept. 7, at which time he found inconsistencies with the other two students’ statements.

The NDSP officer contacted the accused student on Sept. 9, but the student did not return the phone call.

The officer learned on Sept. 11, a Saturday, that the Sept. 10 suicide of a Saint Mary’s student was Seeberg. On Monday, Sept. 13, Brown said the officer contacted other local law enforcement agencies because the death changed the perspective of the investigation. He also tried again to contact the accused student. The accused student met with the NDSP officer on Sept. 15.

The Seeberg family, through media outlets such as ABC News and The Chicago Tribune, expressed concern with the two-week period between the original allegation and the meeting with the accused student. In his interview with The South Bend Tribune, Jenkins cited the inconsistencies between the students’ statements as reason for the delay.

“We conducted an investigation, I think, that was judicious and fair to all parties involved,” Jenkins said. “We grieve for the Seebergs, for the loss of their daughter. At the same time, we have to follow the facts where they lead.”

According to the statements from Seeberg, she was with the accused student, a Saint Mary’s student and another male Notre Dame student in a men’s residence hall at Notre Dame on the evening of Aug. 31.

Seeberg’s statement said the two male students appeared to text message one another, and then the male student and Saint Mary’s student left the room. According to Chicago attorney Joseph A. Power, Jr., who is representing the accused student, cell phone records that NDSP obtained for the investigation show that this text messaging did not occur.

Seeberg alleged that the male student-athlete then kissed her and touched her breasts, then threw her aside when he received a text message or phone call.

Power said the text messages showed neither a text message nor incoming phone call at that time. He said the statements from the other three students and the subpoenaed cell phone records support a phone call from the accused student to the other male student. According to Power, Seeberg’s statement was inconsistent with those of the three other students, who said the phone call was placed because the accused student wanted the other two students to return to the room.

“I think it’s important that people recognize that the evidence shows one phone call,” Power said. “And that’s from the [accused student] from his phone to the dorm mate.”

The December press release from the St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office on its decision not to prosecute also cited inconsistencies in the statements.

“Only Ms. Seeberg and the student-athlete were present during the alleged battery,” the release stated. “Conflicts exist among the witnesses’ accounts of the events given to the police.

Subpoenaed cell phone records are inconsistent with parts of the complaint itself.”

Jenkins said the University allows the prosecutor to make a conclusion on charges before determining whether to proceed with an internal disciplinary process. Brown said the University has not yet decided whether to hold a disciplinary hearing.

In November, Seeberg’s parents sent a letter through their attorney to Jenkins, Vice President for Student Affairs Fr. Tom Doyle and Notre Dame general counsel Marianne Corr.

According to Brown, Corr read the letter and also sent it to NDSP. Because Jenkins and Doyle could ultimately serve as levels of appeal in the University’s disciplinary process, they did not read the letter.

“I am the ultimate court of appeal in disciplinary matters and, consequently, I tried to remain somewhat distant so I am not tainted by one side or another presenting their side of the story,” Jenkins told The South Bend Tribune.

Doyle met Lizzy’s father Tom Seeberg on Sept. 13 at a memorial Mass for Lizzy on Saint Mary’s campus. Since that time, Brown said Doyle maintained regular contact with Tom Seeberg.

Tom Seeberg declined to comment.

Beyond the Seeberg investigation, Brown said the University is working with the U.S. Department of Education on an overall review of its policies. This review is not related to any specific case.

He also said NDSP normally does not send reports to St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office if the student filing an allegation does not request that it be forwarded. Seeberg had not expressed an interest in sending the report to the prosecutor, but the University did choose to forward the investigation results.

The University will work with the prosecutor’s office to decide whether to begin forwarding every investigation into sexual assault allegations, Brown said.

“We’ll work with the prosecutor on that and try to determine what practice we should follow going forward,” he said.

Jenkins said there is always a potential to improve investigations.

“I’m certain, we can always improve,” he said, “but I am confident that this investigation was done with integrity. We followed the facts where they led. We achieved a sound result.”

Since then, bills have been introduced consistently in both the Virginia General Assembly and the Texas Legislature that would arm students. In the former state, the bills have failed repeatedly because the survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting are uniformly opposed to what they see as a potentially dangerous legislative platitude. Yet lawmakers here in Texas continue to push for guns on campus, saying they want to “prevent another Virginia Tech,” despite the repudiation of that argument by the shooting survivors.

The gun lobby has long argued that mass shooters exclusively target “gun-free zones” and, confusingly, that the presence of firearms can deter suicidal individuals. The firearms industry maintains this argument even in the face of the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson that nearly took the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Arizona allows the concealed carry of firearms without any background check or permit. Indeed, Giffords is herself the owner of a Glock handgun. Whether or not the attacker was suicidal, it appears that the threat of “defensive” gunfire had no deterrent effect.

Shootings have more in common with ambushes than duels — and in an ambush, it doesn’t matter how the victims are armed. Two of my martial arts students died in the Virginia Tech shooting; neither had a chance even to stand up, and one never saw her killer enter the room. Guns would not have saved them if they didn’t have time to move. So, we must begin to ask ourselves: What do we do for those who can’t simply get strapped, such as 9-year-old Tucson victim Christina Green?

The gun lobby is using a bait-and-switch tactic. The National Rifle Association slowly picks away at popular gun control measures, obscures statistics from the public view under the guise of privacy and resists the closing of loopholes, arguing that requiring background checks at gun shows is too inconvenient. Then, when a major tragedy occurs, the NRA simply claims that gun control doesn’t work. Yet we see clear evidence that it does work in the U.K., where the homicide rate is one-fourth of that seen in America.

The NRA claims that mass shooters love gun-free zones. Mass shooters do not target gun-free zones because they lack guns. They target gun-free zones because such places are considered sanctuaries. The shooter at my alma mater wanted to take away our feeling of safety in classrooms.

A rational look at the statistics shows that even counting Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, we remain safe in classrooms. According to a Department of Justice study, 93 percent of violent crimes against students happen off campus. Indeed, the University of Texas at Austin has experienced only three homicides in the last 30 years. I cannot imagine improving that rate by adding guns, except perhaps in the hands of professional law enforcement officers.

Alas, the Legislature appears set to replace police officers with armed undergraduates. The budget shortfall all but guarantees doom for higher education, and our peace officers are already underpaid compared to their off-campus counterparts.

At the same time, two bills have been introduced (H.B. 86 and S.B. 354) which would effectively deputize and arm students with only about a day’s worth of training. Currently the law requires that such individuals be 21, but a recently filed court case in Lubbock is likely to change the minimum age to 18.

Only one in four Texans support the two bills, but the ratio in the Legislature seems to be around one in two.

While most of the few students who support the legislation have good intentions, it is worth acknowledging that people make a lot of mistakes in college — and it is best to make these mistakes without a firearm in hand. I hope Texas will join me, along with the survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting, in protecting the sanctuaries that are our classrooms.

Such accusations are false and off-base. The only one responsible for the shooting is Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old, mentally unstable shooter. Pundits and so-called “experts” blame society for the shooter’s deranged act, transferring responsibility away from the individual. To do so may be a natural human reaction to rationalize one disturbed man’s heinous act. Nevertheless, it is a counterproductive and dangerous because it does what the shooter would want people to do: draw criticism away from him.

Most of the criticism levied against Sarah Palin and the Tea Party comes from MSNBC and Paul Krugman, an economist and op-ed columnist for The New York Times. Krugman pointed the finger at “the saturation of our political discourse…with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence. Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming…from the right.” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann warned that “[i]f Sarah Palin…does not repudiate her own part, however tangential, in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics.”

Whether or not militant rhetoric creates a hostile political environment or merely reflects one is irrelevant to the Tucson shooting. There is no evidence that Loughner was motivated to assassinate Giffords because of the political opinions, words or actions of Tea Party figures. Lougher is a sick, twisted, psychotic individual whose actions stem from paranoid schizophrenia, not political fervor. The facts of the case point the blame solely on him and a possible neurological disorder – no one else.

This is some of what the public now knows about Loughner’s personality: In high school, he was a socially awkward student who was nevertheless identified by friends as friendly and happy with his life. The group he hung out with smoked marijuana daily and often discussed philosophy and conspiracy theories. Loughner also engaged in frequent binge drinking. Once, when he was a junior, he was taken to the hospital and nearly died after binge drinking tequila during a lunch break. In 2008, he was rejected from the Army after he admitted to using marijuana so much that Army officials present identified him as “a habitual drug abuser.” In October 2008, he was arrested for vandalizing a sign and admitted to other acts of vandalism in the area. When he attended Pima Community College, he often disrupted class with frequent outbursts. Campus police met him for “classroom and library disruptions” five times between February and September 2010. Later, police discovered a video he had posted on YouTube that accused the college of being unconstitutional and of torturing students. Loughner left voluntarily, but college officials ordered him not to return unless he had passed a mental health examination. Lynda Sorensen, who was in Loughner’s algebra class, described him as “a mentally unstable person…that scares the living crap out of me.”

Regarding his political beliefs, Loughner had a political ideology of his own. He believed that the government was “implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.” In 2007, before the nation knew about Sarah Palin and before the Tea Party ever existed, Lougher attended a “Congress on Your Corner” event held by Giffords, similar to the one at which he shot her. After she refused to answer his nonsensical question, he labelled her a “fake,” according to former friend Bryce Tierney. On pieces of paper found in his house, he wrote “Giffords” and “Die bitch.” Loughner was a registered Independent and did not vote in the 2010 midterm elections. A former classmate, Caitie Parker, said that “[as] I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy.” Friends, with whom he later dropped out of contact, say that his philosophy was defined by nihilism and conspiracy. He believed that the U.S. government orchestrated the 9-11 attacks and feared the rise of a single international monetary system under the power of governments used to control people. CBS News’ Bob Orr diagnoses Loughner as “a man who viewed the government as a monolith. He was just against the government….and the theory is that he didn’t attack Congresswoman Giffords because she was either liberal or conservative, or even moderate. He attacked Congresswoman Giffords, [the FBI] believes, because she was the representative of government closest to him.”

Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate a member of Congress, assassinated a federal judge and killed four others including a 9-year-old girl. Arguments and accusations that intentionally try to link the Tea Party or Palin to this crime are dishonest, deplorable and delusional. Such arguments, promoted by media pundits, place blame on societies and political parties, not where it should be – on the individual who pulled the trigger. Loughner probably enjoys society wondering what it could have done to stop him. But the answer lies with his nihilism – nothing. He decided to shoot Giffords, he “planned ahead” (in his own words) and he will pay for his crime.

There is nothing wrong with a society trying to explain the unexplainable questions: why does evil exist? Why does a young man with so much promise become a brutal monster? As Jon Stewart stated after the shooting, “Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to draw a straight line of causation from this horror to something tangible, because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stop this [cause], the horrors will end.” In this case, no one is to blame except the criminal himself. An attempt to seek blame elsewhere only lets Loughner off the hook and denies justice to the man who committed an inexcusable, unjustifiable act.

He ran toward the gunshots to see if he could help and was the first person to give medical attention to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

Hernandez said he received training in high school to be a certified nursing assistant and in phlebotomy, the drawing of blood.

“When I approached where the congresswoman was, I ended up seeing that there were a few other people that were injured so I tried to check pulses to see if they were still breathing,” Hernandez said.

He said he was only able to check two or three people before moving on to Giffords.

“I saw that she had been severely injured because she had that severe gunshot wound to the head … she was my main focus so I stayed with her and tried to help her as much as possible,” Hernandez said.

First he tried to reposition her by propping her up against his chest while holding her steady so she could breathe. Hernandez said he moved her because her position put her at risk of inhaling her own blood.

After moving her, he applied pressure to her head to stop the blood loss.

Hernandez started interning with Giffords on Monday, but has known the congresswoman for a number of years. He interned in her 2008 congressional campaign and worked with Giffords and her staff in 2010 while managing a campaign for a local legislative district candidate.

“I just want to make sure that everyone sends their positive thoughts and energy and if they pray their prayers to not just the congresswoman but all of those who were injured and the families of all of those that have family members that have passed on,” Hernandez said.

His main concern this Sunday has been staying updated on how everyone involved is doing.

After the shooting he felt “just shock and a lot of sadness because not only was it an attack on the congresswoman but I think 19 people, six of whom have unfortunately passed on,” Hernandez said.

Several people are calling Hernandez a hero but he doesn’t agree.

“I don’t think I’m a hero. I think doing something one off is not something heroic,” Hernandez said. “I think the heroes are people like Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Ron Barber, Dave Zimmerman, and Pam Simon. They are people who have dedicated their lives to public service so for them it wasn’t just a one time thing, it’s spending their entire lives trying to help others.”

He told police he was frustrated after hearing news of a student who had been hit by a police cruiser and upset over the death of a friend in the Marines who had committed suicide, according to the criminal complaint. But the man also said he was under the influence of alcohol and mental health medications, and was suffering from mental health issues during the time he committed the arsons, according to the complaint.

Police said Mason Worley, 21, of Souderton, Pa., intentionally started the fires in three separate incidents. The fires completely destroyed one police cruiser, damaged another cruiser and caused damage to the office door and adjacent hallway at the Marine Corps recruiting office at 242 S. Fraser St.

The fires caused about $11,697 in property damage, according to court documents.

Worley was unavailable to comment and his father, when reached, also declined to comment on the charges.

Worley is charged with five counts each of felony grade three arson and related offenses in connection with the incidents, according to court documents. Worley also faces multiple charges of institutional vandalism and criminal mischief, according to court documents.

Worley was identified after an employee at Uni-Mart, 401 S. Pugh St. alerted police to surveillance video of a suspicious male who purchased lighter fluid in addition to an iced tea, brownie, and Bic lighter on July 22, according to court documents.

After the video was released to the media by police, an anonymous online tip sent to police on Nov. 9 identified Mason Worley as the man in the video, according to court documents.

Days later police detectives met with Worley, who denied his involvement in the arsons. Worley told detectives that he failed out of Penn State and was also turned down from enlisting in the Marines because of medical reasons, according to court documents.

In December, police were contacted by Worley’s attorney, Tim Fleming. Fleming told police his client was responsible for all three arson incidents and wanted to cooperate with police, according to court documents.

In a Dec. 20 meeting with Worley, his attorney and police, Worley admitted to committing the arsons. Worley said the first incident started as a result of his frustration with a student who had been hit by a police cruiser, according to court documents. Worley said he thought the student had died as a result of the accident.

The student in question had been struck by a police cruiser April 25 and sustained injuries, but recovered.

At the time of the first arson, Worley was “using several mental health drugs and would go out drinking,” according to court documents. Worley also said he would take a black backpack with him which contained “spray paint, medication, a knife, and lighter fluid,” according to court documents.

In the first incident at 1:20 a.m. June 21, officers were able to extinguish a lit package containing 200 “M-80” firecrackers placed on top of an unmarked police cruiser parked behind that State College Municipal Building, 243 S. Allen St.

Worley did not remember all of the details of the first arson but did admit to lighting and throwing a pack of fireworks on top of an unmarked police cruiser, according to court documents.

During the second incident, Worley was “under the influence of mental health medications and alcohol,” and again went out with his black backpack, according to court documents.

Worley said he poured lighter fluid on and under the car before igniting it, according to court documents. The cruiser “went up in flames worse than what he had expected,” before he fled the scene, according to court documents. The vehicle was completely destroyed, causing about $10,425 in damage.

Days later, Worley said he was upset about a friend in the Marines who committed suicide, and was again under the influence of mental health medications and alcohol, according to court documents. After a night of drinking Worley purchased “snacks and a container of charcoal lighter fluid,” from the Pugh Street Uni-Mart before going to the top of the Beaver Avenue parking garage, according to court documents.

Worley said he thought about committing suicide but he became “fixated on the Marine recruiter’s office on Fraser Street,” according to court documents.

After attempting to gain access to the office, Worley said he sprayed the accelerant onto the door and into the office through the mail slot before igniting the blaze, according to court documents. After he realized the door also served as an entrance and exit to the two floors of apartments above the office, Worley said he “observed the recruiting office to make sure the office did not catch on fire and endanger the residents of the apartment building,” according to court documents.

Worley was released on $150,000 unsecured bail and waived his charges to trial on Monday, police said.

The cause of death was suicide, according to a representative at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. The 24-year-old was born in Chicago and lived in Whitefish Bay, Wis.

Owen was a reservist in the United States Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq for one tour of combat duty in 2007 as a member of Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment.

While deployed, Justin’s company of reservists primarily operated checkpoints and provided medical care to citizens, said Owen’s father, Tom. He said Justin became relatively fluent in Arabic while in Iraq, which helped him communicate with Iraqi women and children needing health care as well as train Iraqi police forces.

Tom Owen said there was “some evidence” that his son may have been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a trauma-related anxiety disorder affecting an estimated 11 to 20 percent of U.S. veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the National Center for PTSD. However, Tom Owen said the family was not sure if his son was suffering from PTSD and did not notice any significant changes in him upon his return from Iraq.

Justin Owen reportedly received news of his deployment while a sophomore at Marquette University, a school he transferred to after attending Norwich University in Northfield, Vt. for two years.

“I’m looking to fight for an adventure,” he reportedly told The Marquette Tribune in 2007 after hearing of his deployment.

Justin Owen was “driven to be a Marine” throughout his middle and high school years, when he became interested in history, philosophy and military studies, his father said.

“He knew his calling was to be a Marine,” Tom said. “Why a Marine? Because they were the tough ones, and that’s where he wanted to be: out in front.”

At the end of his tour in 2008, Justin Owen returned to Marquette’s Diederich College of Communication, later graduating cum laude in journalism.

“His idea was to take his military experience and training and his journalistic nature and education and travel the world,” Tom said. “He wanted to go to hot spots and report.”

John Lavine, Medill’s dean, sent an e-mail Dec. 29 announcing the death to the Medill community. In an interview, Lavine said those who knew Justin Owen speak of him as a good student whose involvement and performance were increasing over the course of Fall Quarter, his first at NU.

The offices of Counseling and Psychological Services on the Evanston and Chicago campuses have been notified of Justin’s death, Lavine said, and plan to meet with Medill’s graduate students Tuesday.

“We need to hold (his family) together and comfort each other,” he said. “The people at CAPS I talked to said, ‘We’re here for you, but it’s also true that his classmates, faculty and staff can do a lot for each other by being supportive and aware,’ and we sure want to do that.”

The Owens have established The Justin Owen Memorial Fund in his memory, which will likely provide financial assistance to graduate students in Medill. There will also likely be a memorial service at NU during Winter Quarter, Tom said.

“We’d love to do anything that brings comfort to the family,” Lavine said.

Justin Owen was buried with full military honors in Milwaukee on Dec. 30, a service attended by several Medill faculty and students, Tom Owen said. He is survived by his father; his mother, Rebecca; and two brothers, Nicholas, 27, and Thomas John, 22.

His father said Justin Owen, who loved education, would have liked to do what he could for Medill’s graduate program, a place he said his son was beginning to love.

“Justin’s probably the kindest person anyone would want to meet, regardless of his 6-foot-1, stare-you-in-the-eye Marine glare,” he said. “He was kind-hearted and a super good kid.”

Associate professor Ognjen Milatovic, 37, is charged with interfering with the operation of an aircraft and disorderly, Massachusetts state police said.

State police said Milatovic was removed from U.S. Airways Flight 2025 around 8:30 a.m. Monday because he would not take his seat and place his carry-on luggage into an overhead bin after a flight attendant instructed him to do so. Milatovic also refused to turn off his cell phone on the Washington D.C.-bound flight.

Once Milatovic stored his bag in the overhead bin, there was an electronic noise that concerned some of the passengers. Another passenger accused Milatovic of making awkward movements and saying into his cell phone, “I have boarded.” There was nothing suspicious found in his bag, state police said.

Milatovic’s father, Boris, said the incident was a big misunderstanding and that his son has a nerve problem in his back and legs that makes it hard for him to sit for long periods of time.

UNF Mathematics and Statistics Chair Scott Hochwald said he found the news shocking and that Milatovic has never had any problems similar to what happened in Boston.

U.S. Airways flight 2025 had 117 passengers on board and was delayed at the gate for almost an hour, Phil Orlandella of Massport, told NECN.

The Associated Press reported that Milatovic was arraigned and released Monday afternoon on recognizance bond in East Boston District Court. He will return to court March 15.

Milatovic has taught mathematics and statistics at UNF since 2004. Milatovic is scheduled to teach a Precalculus class as well as “Explorations in Mathematics” for the spring semester.

New England universities took the top four places. UNH was followed by Northeastern U., Bryant U., and U. Maine. U. Vermont was ranked 18^th.

The site used “drug scene” grades from College Prowler, a student review database, along with data on illicit drug, marijuana, and cocaine use by state for 18-25 year olds and U.S. Department of Education data for the number of on-campus arrests for 2009 for drug-law violations for each school.

According to the website: “The College Prowler grades were assigned a numerical value according to the letter grade assigned, which was weighted one-third of each school’s final score; the arrests-per-capita rank and drug use ranks were also ranked one-third of the final rank.”

UNH spokeswoman Erika Mantz told the Boston Herald: “This does not accurately reflect the campus environment at the University of New Hampshire. It is not clear how this unscientific ranking was determined.”

The data given for UNH is below:

Drug use grade: C-

Percentage of 18-25s statewide using drugs regularly: 29.21

Percentage of 18-25s statewide using marijuana regularly: 41.54

Percentage of 18-25s statewide using cocaine regularly: 7.23

2009 on-campus arrests for drug law violations: 106

Student population: 15,253

A high concentration of carbon monoxide is a serious concern for any enclosed space.

Carbon monoxide poisoning can cause mild nausea, headaches and dizziness.

Depending on the amount of gas exposure, the symptoms can escalate quickly to a lack of consciousness.

If the unconscious victim isn’t removed from the environment the results could be fatal, according to the Indiana State Department of Health’s website.

Still, many students still aren’t aware of the toxic gas’ threats.

Sophomore Brenda Zhang laughed when asked about her gas worries and said, “If I can’t see it, I don’t think it can see me.”

College students might not be worried about carbon monoxide, but a gas build-up can come from a number of common combustible household items such as an idling car, a lit fireplace, a lantern or a gas range stove.

“We go out on quite a few alarms from carbon monoxide detectors,” Bloomington (Ind.) Fire Department Sergeant Tania Daffron said.

According to the Indiana State Department of Health, more than 500 Americans die from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning each year.

Statistics haven’t been released from the Bloomington Hospital or the coroner’s office on local poisoning rates. However, especially since the gas is odorless, carbon monoxide still poses a risk.

A lack of public knowledge about carbon monoxide poisoning may also contribute to the danger it poses. Around the Indiana U. campus, knowledge was scarce about carbon monoxide risk in the coming months of closed doors and sealed windows.

Junior Chirag Agarwal said he is aware of the popular carbon issues, but the threat of poisoning doesn’t bother him much.

To avoid the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, the Carbon Monoxide Safety Association recommends only using non-electrical space heaters in well ventilated areas, making sure vehicles are not left running in enclosed spaces and ensuring that every residence has at least one working carbon monoxide detector.

For more information about carbon monoxide, visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s website at www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/coftsht.html.

University officials used the Buckeye Alert system, which sends emergency alerts via text message, e-mail or phone call, to notify students about the bomb threat. But many students, including dozens who were in the buildings when they were evacuated, were unaware of the threat.

OSU’s Department of Public Safety announced at 8:41 a.m. Tuesday that police were investigating bomb threats that mentioned four OSU buildings: the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library and McPherson, Smith and Scott laboratories.

Police evacuated the buildings about an hour after someone sent an anonymous message to the FBI tip line at fbi.gov.

The tip went through the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., before going to FBI field officers in Columbus, who notified OSU officials of the threat at 8:19 a.m., said FBI Special Agent Michael E. Brooks. There was about a 20-minute lag between the time university officials learned of the threat and the time they sent messages to Buckeye Alert subscribers.

Officials from several law enforcement agencies searched the four buildings throughout the day with bomb-sniffing dogs. All classes and activities in those buildings were canceled during the searches, but all other campus activities continued as usual.

Officers did not find any explosives, and their search concluded at about 8 p.m. Tuesday. All buildings were reopened by 9 p.m.

Police would not disclose details about the threat.

Following the investigations Tuesday, OSU officials sent a university-wide e-mail encouraging students to subscribe to the Buckeye Alert system. About 32,000 subscribers to the system received warnings of the situation Tuesday morning, said Bob Armstrong, director of Emergency Management and Fire Prevention.

But some who enrolled in the opt-in alert system said they never got the message.

“I signed up my freshman year, and I’ve gotten other alerts from OSU, but I didn’t get one today,” said Allie Dorsky, a fourth-year in strategic communication. “The only e-mail I got today was the Student Life e-mail that was sent out later.”

Dorsky is the vice president for risk management for Alpha Chi Omega sorority and is responsible for keeping the chapter informed of safety issues.

“I was pretty shocked when I found out about the bomb threat. It wasn’t just some minor thing,” Dorsky said. “It’s pretty alarming that something like that was going on around me, and I had absolutely no idea.”

Dorsky said some classmates who also subscribe to Buckeye Alert did not receive warnings.

Armstrong said those cases might not be the university’s fault.

“It’s not always an issue with our system,” he said. “Once we send out the text to the carrier, it’s up to the carrier, such as Verizon, to distribute the text to the individual.”

But Dorsky said she was signed up to receive e-mail alerts, so no carrier was involved.

Undergraduate Student Government President Micah Kamrass will meet with Public Safety officials Friday and will urge them to switch Buckeye Alert to an opt-out system, so students will automatically be enrolled unless they unsubscribe.

USG has been pushing for that policy for about two years, Kamrass said. He said he will use the bomb threats Tuesday as an example of why the university should automatically enroll students in the system.

“I hope this example shows why that’s so important,” Kamrass said. “In matters like this, that can literally be life and death.”

Kamrass said he also had heard complaints from students who did not receive notice of the bomb threat.

Some students who had to leave class because of the bomb threat said they did not know what was going on.

Kevin Haimes, a fourth-year in mechanical engineering, said the fire alarm went off about 10 minutes into his 8:30 a.m. engineering class in Scott.

“Basically, everyone thought it was a fire drill, so we just casually walked outside,” Haimes said. “Everyone was just hanging out outside for five to 10 minutes before one police woman came up to us and told us to back up.”

The group stayed close to the building for about 30 minutes, Haimes said.

“We were in the part they ended up roping off until they roped it off,” he said.

Stanley Durkin, professor of physics, was teaching an 8:30 a.m. class in Smith when the alarm went off. He said nobody knew what was happening.

“It took us about 30 minutes to know what was going on,” Durkin said. “After about 30 minutes, police moved in and said nobody could stand on the sidewalk outside Smith Lab.”

Haimes left his belongings in the building during the evacuation and was still waiting to retrieve them at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. He spoke with a police officer outside at about 2 p.m., but the officer could not answer his questions.

“We asked if they were going to search our bags or if they were going to move them somewhere,” Haimes said. “The police officer who was standing out there didn’t have any idea what was going on.”

At about 5 p.m., a student notified police about an unattended backpack with a wire sticking out of it in Macquigg Laboratory. Police cleared the first floor of Macquigg for about 20 minutes but did not find any explosives.

E-mails and texts sent to those enrolled in the university’s Buckeye Alert system said the threat was linked to McPherson Chemical Laboratory, Scott Laboratory, Smith Laboratory and William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. The text message said to “Avoid these buildings and area,” which had been evacuated earlier in the morning.

Students and those working in the buildings were evacuated and directed to safe areas, according to a university safety message on the Ohio State website.

The text message alert also said updates on osu.edu, however at the time of the text alert, there was no information available online.

The FBI alerted OSU officials at 8:19 a.m. that the agency had received threats regarding the four buildings. It is unclear how the FBI received the tip or if there are any suspects.

Besides OSU Police, the FBI and Columbus Fire Department bomb squad are on campus investigating. Law enforcement officials have also called in bomb-sniffing dogs from local airport security to help search buildings.

Yellow caution tape surrounds all four buildings and extends down 18th Ave., blocking access to all buildings. Police officers are directing everyone away from police barriers. Some classes in nearby buildings have reportedly been canceled.

Staff from Thompson library were relocated to the geology library in Orton Hall after OSU officials received the threats.

“It would be standard procedure that they would probably have dogs in all four of the buildings,” Larry Allen, communications coordinator at Thompson library said.

The  buildings will remain closed until further notice.

To receive the Buckeye Alerts, students must enroll in the opt-in system. Officials said about 32,000 people received the text message alerts this morning, but some parents of students told The Lantern that their children had not received the notification.

“We are conducting an investigation and we must be careful not to pre-judge its results, but I will say this: Declan Sullivan was entrusted to our care, and we failed to keep him safe,” Jenkins said in the e-mail. “We at Notre Dame – and ultimately I, as President – are responsible. Words cannot express our sorrow to the Sullivan family and to all involved.”

Sullivan, a videographer for the football team, died Oct. 27 after the hydraulic scissor lift from which he was filming football practice fell.

Jenkins’ e-mail also announced the appointment of Peter Likins, former University of Arizona president, to lead an external review of the Notre Dame’s investigation into Sullivan’s death.

Likins is also former president of Lehigh University, according to a University press release issued Friday. In addition to other roles in higher education, he has served as provost at Columbia University, where he was a professor and dean at the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Jenkins did not provide a timeline for the investigation, but said the University would make the results public when they became available.

“Investigations and external reviews such as this take time, but I assure you that, when complete, we will issue a public report on the outcome, including information on the events of the afternoon of Oct. 27, any institutional ramifications and recommendations for safety policies in the future,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins also expressed support for Head Football Coach Brian Kelly, in reaction to what he called “unfounded and unfair commentary and speculation.”

“Coach Kelly was hired not only because of his football expertise, but because we believed his character and values accord with the highest standards of Notre Dame,” Jenkins said. “All we have seen since he came to Notre Dame, and everything we have learned in our investigation to date, have confirmed that belief. For those reasons I am confident that Coach Kelly has a bright future leading our football program.”

Finally, the e-mail thanked Notre Dame students, faculty, staff, alumni and parents for concern and prayers following Sullivan’s death.

“At the darkest moments, the love, and care, and faith of the Notre Dame family shines most brightly,” he said.

“It was great to see the Mass, all the people there, that’s great. Only at Notre Dame, right?” said junior walk-on safety Chris Salvi, who met Sullivan at football tryouts in their freshman year at Carmel Catholic High in Mundelein, Ill.

Sullivan, a videographer for the football team, died Wednesday when the scissor lift from which he was filming practice collapsed. His memory was honored throughout the day Saturday as Notre Dame played Tulsa.

Prior to kickoff, the band dedicated its Trumpets in the Dome performance to Sullivan, and played the Alma Mater at the conclusion of its halftime performance.

The football team honored Sullivan with a moment of silence immediately following the national anthem, as well as a prayer led by University President Fr. John Jenkins. Notre Dame and Tulsa players also wore green shamrock helmet decals emblazoned with the letters “DS” in black. Players attended postgame interviews wearing shirts with the same design.

“When you look at this shirt and the decals on the helmet, it gives us another boost and another thing to play for,” Te’o said.

After the game, Irish coach Brian Kelly spoke about Sullivan, who he estimated was one of only a dozen student workers he has known personally over his 20-year coaching career.

“I got a chance to meet Declan and know him because of all the time he spent in our office, especially this summer,” Kelly said. “As you know, he was a lover of film and writing. … I’ve got great memories of him just being in the film and video offices.

“You know, you think you’re strong and able to handle all of those things that are thrown at you. This one was very difficult.”

Kelly said he knew as soon as the tower fell that Sullivan was the one on it.

Even though the Irish came up short against Tulsa, players said the opportunity to play was an important part of the grieving process.

“I think a lot of us were very grateful for this chance to play today and to get our minds off of everything that happened this week,” senior linebacker Brian Smith said. “It was really good to get our team out on the field today and just try and play the game.”

In addition to honoring him on the field, Te’o said he would do whatever he could to support and console Sullivan’s family.

“My heart goes out to his family,” Te’o said. “I’m trying to get ahold of his sister Gwen to make sure she is okay; and that if she needs anything, to let me know and let my family know. It’s a tough time for them and we just have to be there for them, since we are a big family.”

Junior defensive end Ethan Johnson echoed Te’o's comments, saying that Notre Dame’s loss to Tulsa was of secondary importance Saturday.

“I view [the game and the tragedy] as totally different,” Johnson said. “Losing [a football game] pales in comparison to death. I feel horrible about losing, but it pales in comparison to how his family feels right now.”

Salvi recounted a particularly memorable speech Sullivan gave for a class in high school. He said Sullivan started the speech by pretending to be visibly nervous, enough to worry his classmates, before composing himself and giving a great presentation. Salvi said word of the speech quickly spread through the school.

“I actually wasn’t even in the class, I just remember hearing about it,” Salvi said. “It just got around the school and it was funny.”

Salvi said one of the toughest parts of the past few days was communicating news of the tragedy to friends back home.

“It’s not easy, especially when you’ve got friends calling you up asking what happened and you have to explain to them,” he said. “You’ve just got to take a step back and take time to think about everything, just reflect, and also have people there for you to let you know it’s going to be okay. I’ve been fortunate enough to have support from family, friends, coaches, teammates.”

He said the remembrance of Sullivan would extend well beyond Saturday’s game.

“You don’t want to put it out of your mind because he was a good person and you want to remember him and kind of honor him in the way you conduct yourself every day, not just on the football field,” Salvi said. “You want to act like he would want you to act and you want to play like he would want us to play.”

Deandrew Hamlin, 18, was arrested after he was caught driving the Jeep Cherokee of Sue Ann Marcum, a 52-year-old professor in AU’s Kogod School of Business who was found dead Monday morning in her Bethesda home.

Hamlin, a resident of Northwest D.C., was charged Monday with unauthorized use of a vehicle and felony fleeing. Montgomery County police spokesman Capt. Paul Sparks said police want to talk to Hamlin about the killing of Marcum, but he hasn’t been charged with her murder.

Police told the Washington Post that Marcum had trauma to her body, but didn’t release more details on the cause of her death.

Sparks told the Post that detectives believe Marcum may have been slain by someone trying to burglarize her house.

Marcum was found in the lower level of her home in the Glen Echo area of Montgomery County.

She was described in a statement on AU’s website as a “warm, caring and funny” person who was the recipient of Kogod’s Professor of the Year award for three consecutive years. Marcum began teaching at the business school in 1999, and was a graduate of the program herself.

She served as the director of the school’s master’s in accounting program and created a scholarship fund in her name.

Marcum also worked for seven years as the tax director for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus company.

The former assistant vice president for University Business Services told an unidentified employee over the phone that he was “angry enough to shoot people in the HDL Center and HR Center,” according to a press release. Hopton reportedly stated that he had loaded guns.

OU Police found 14 firearms when they searched Hopton’s Millfield house yesterday, said Police Chief Andrew Powers.

An OU employee reported the threat at about 4 p.m. yesterday and police arrested Hopton between 8 and 8:30 p.m., he said.

Police continue to guard the Human Resources Training Center and HDL Center, both of which are located on Union Street.

Hopton was charged with making “terroristic” threats – a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He posted $10,000 bail sometime before midnight, Powers said.

In June, Hopton, who earned $159,776 a year, was laid off, along with 56 other OU employees. He worked on joint purchases between OU departments.

“It was an unremarkable journey in the sense that practice was normal and plays were being conducted with no difficulty,” he said.

Shortly after, Swarbrick felt the wind speed up and heard a crash.

He described the minutes preceding Declan Sullivan’s death from his perspective in a press conference Thursday, where he told reporters the University is launching a full investigation into the video tower accident that caused the Notre Dame junior’s death.

Swarbrick declined to answer questions about the possible effect of the day’s weather conditions on the accident until the investigation is completed. Winds reportedly reached 50 miles per hour when Sullivan, who was videotaping the football practice for the University, was on the scissor lift that collapsed.

“There is a lot to learn here, and we will learn it all,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of speculation about what may or may not have happened, but that’s what the investigation is for.”

Swarbrick also declined to comment on which channels of authority authorized an outdoor practice and who was responsible for clearing the videographers to tape practice from the tower.

“It’s not one decision. There are multiple decisions made,” he said. “It’s not a decision to go outside. It’s a host of decisions relevant to ‘Do you go outside?’”

The Notre Dame Security Police (NDSP) and a contracted accident reconstruction team are investigating the accident. The Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA) also launched an investigation. The state investigates all workplace fatalities, an IOSHA official said.

As Swarbrick walked through the north end of the west field of the LaBar Practice Complex, he said he saw items like towels and Gatorade containers fly by him. Officials estimate the tower fell about 4:51 p.m., he said.

“I noticed the netting on the goal posts start to bend dramatically and heard a crash,” Swarbrick said. “At first, I couldn’t orient the location of the crash.”

Emergency personnel responded quickly following the collapse of the tower, Swarbrick said. NDSP responded in three minutes, followed by the Notre Dame Fire Department and a city ambulance.

Swarbrick and head football coach Brian Kelly told players and staff members to leave the accident scene.

“Coach Kelly remained with me by Declan until the ambulance attendant had Declan up on a lift,” Swarbrick said.

Before the ambulance reached the hospital, Sullivan was no longer breathing on his own, he said.

Sullivan’s parents and younger brother came to campus Wednesday evening. His sister is a freshman at the University. Vice President for Student Affairs Fr. Tom Doyle spent the evening with the family.

During the press conference, University President Fr. John Jenkins said Sullivan was bright, energetic and dedicated.

“There is no greater sadness for a university community than the death of one of the students. There is certainly no greater sadness for a family than the loss of a son or brother,” Jenkins said. “It is with the sense of that double sadness that on behalf of the whole University, I want to express our deepest condolences.”

Swarbrick said the investigation into Sullivan’s death began immediately. In response to questions about practicing in the weather conditions and allowing the videographers to use the towers, he said each individual sports program makes its own decisions about how practice will proceed. Investigators will examine the decisions made about that specific practice leading up to the accident, he said.

Swarbrick said no information will be released until the investigation is complete. He said he expects the practice field will be restored by this weekend.

At least one other videographer was on a tower taping practice Wednesday. Swarbrick said he has witnessed past practices in which the video towers were not used, possibly because of weather concerns, most likely, lightning, he said.

The videographers are part of the broader football administration team, and they report to a video coordinator.

“We’ll let the investigation thoroughly and completely run its course. And then we’ll have the ability to really understand what happened, to learn from it and to move forward from it,” Swarbrick said.

Sixty years ago, school children were shown instructional videos featuring “Bert the Turtle” that taught them what to do if an atomic weapon were to explode: duck and cover.

People were told to crawl under desks, tables and even brace themselves against walls while covering their necks to survive a 10-megaton nuclear warhead.

If these instructions sound familiar, it’s because they are.

Despite the immense differences between an enormous earthquake and an atom bomb, both drills relatively serve the same purpose: quell public panic and provide a false sense of security before anything happens.

Although we might not be reduced to ash by “The Big One,” a currently-fictional earthquake in California registering an 8 or 9 on the Richter Scale, we should still be weary of it.

Fear is warranted; so avoid the complacent attitude that “everything will be fine if you follow these steps” that people took during the Cold War. That is a very poor way of dealing with reality.

As silly as it sounds, people living during the Cold War era grew to believe, or at least accept, the nonsense chirped by public officials about how anything — even a newspaper — could protect them from a nuclear attack if they were covered by it.

But people weren’t stupid back then: Many people knew what an atom bomb would do to them, but perhaps they accepted the government’s pseudoscience because it offered them hope and peace of mind.

Unlike an atomic attack, there’s nothing diplomacy or science can do to prevent an earthquake: These events happen as a consequence of nature, not man.

For this reason we should avoid the ‘ignorance is bliss’ route Americans took during the Cold War. If we really want to feel secure, we should be spending our money and time upgrading our buildings, preparing earthquake kits and developing emergency aid plans like those for hurricanes.

According to californiawatch.com, Cal Poly Pomona has fourteen seismically-hazardous buildings on campus — far more than any other California State University. The Classroom Laboratory Adminisration gets all of the attention, but Building 5 and the Los Olivos Dining Commons are among those deemed hazardous.

When public officials talk about “The Big One,” they tell us what to do as if every earthquake is the same: duck and cover.

But is it common knowledge what an 8.0 or 9.0 on the Richter Scale actually means?

Recall from sixth-grade Earth science that each increment on the Richter Scale denotes an exponentially more powerful release of energy than the previous one.

To put things into perspective, a 0.5 magnitude is about equal to the energy released by a large hand grenade; a 4.0 is about the size of a small atomic bomb.

An 8.0 earthquake was enough to flatten San Francisco in 1906 with approximately 15 megatons of energy.

An 8.8 earthquake, which releases approximately 238 megatons of energy, is about three times more powerful than the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated.  One of those earthquakes struck Chile earlier this year and was so powerful it could be felt in Southern California.

Let’s be a little bit more realistic and a little more educated about the dangers around us.

Unlike “the bomb,” we know earthquakes occur all the time and are beyond our preventative control.  We must be ready and that means finding a fine balance between artificially-induced tranquility and pandemonium.

In California, the danger of an earthquake warrants far more caution, education and preparation than “duck and cover” drills and simple evacuation plans.

If we’re anticipating “The Big One,” we should expect the worst and treat it as such.

Those who knew him well remembered Sullivan, a resident of Fisher Hall, as fun-loving and outgoing.

His rector, Fr. Robert Moss, said he remembers Sullivan “mostly just for his enthusiasm for everything he was involved in.”

Originally from Long Grove, Ill., Sullivan was double majoring in marketing and Film, Television & Theatre.

Sullivan was a contributor to The Observer’s Scene section.

He was filming practice from a hydraulic scissorlift at the LaBar Practice Complex on the southeast side of campus when the tower fell around 4:50 p.m., according to a University press release. He worked as a videographer for the Department of Athletics.

Sullivan was transported to Memorial Hospital in South Bend, where he later died.

Junior Marc Anthony Rosa, who was a friend of Sullivan, said describing Sullivan was an “impossible task.”

“He’s an unbelievably unique soul that, when you meet him, he’s completely addicting to be around. He’s nonstop energy. He’s like no one else you’ve ever met,” he said. “Although he may not be here, his soul is impossible to leave this campus and the people who’ve known him.”

Moss said he arrived at the hospital after Sullivan died, and he anointed and blessed the body.

“I was glad to be able to anoint the body,” he said.

When Moss left the hospital, he said a University representative stayed with the body until family members arrived. Sullivan’s sister is a freshman Lewis Hall resident.

Moss said he met with hall staff and gathered Fisher residents in the hall’s chapel at 8 p.m. to make the announcement.

“Every chair was full,” he said. “He’ll be greatly missed.”

Sullivan’s resident assistant Teddy Schaefer, a senior, said Sullivan was a “fun-loving guy, just a happy person. I’m in shock right now.”

Moss presided over a standing-room-only Mass for Sullivan Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m. About 200 people attended the service in Fisher’s St. Paul Chapel.

The Mass opened with the song “On Eagle’s Wings” and closed with the congregation singing the Alma Mater.

Following the Mass, attendees processed to the Grotto, where about 150 students gathered and recited a decade of the rosary.

Junior Kathryn Greenfield, a friend of Sullivan’s who was among the students at the Grotto, said Sullivan was the first male student she became friends with at Notre Dame.

“He is the nicest, most easy-going [person], always has a smile on his face, always wants to have a good time,” she said. “Sweet person.”

Junior Alex Karamol agreed and called Sullivan “a total sweetheart.”

Greenfield and Karamol said they spent time sitting together in silence after hearing the news of Sullivan’s death, but also spent time telling stories about their friend.

They recalled his signature facial expressions and phrases, and laughed while mimicking them for each other.

Karamol said her favorite memory of Sullivan was when she was in a film he made his freshman year because she saw her easy-going friend being serious about his passion.

“It was a different side of him,” she said.

The University notified students of the death at 9 p.m. Wednesday in an e-mail signed by University President Fr. John Jenkins and Vice President for Student Affairs Fr. Tom Doyle.

“No words can convey the shock and grief we all are experiencing,” the e-mail said. “Declan was a well-liked, bright and enthusiastic film and marketing student and a valued member of the Notre Dame family. His death is a tremendous loss that will be felt very deeply and we share in your grief during this incredibly difficult time.”

Head football coach Brian Kelly also released a statement Wednesday night.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Declan’s family and friends,” he said. “Declan was a diligent student worker in our video department and had a tremendous personality and great sense of humor. He brightened the days for all that had the privilege to work with him, and the Notre Dame football family will dearly miss him.”

Moss, who has been rector of Fisher Hall for 12 years and in education for almost 40 years, has faced student death in the past, and said it is always difficult.

“It’s always a tragedy when a young person is called home to God,” he said.

A Mass of Remembrance will be held in honor of Sullivan today at 10 p.m. in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The entire Notre Dame community is invited to attend, according to the e-mail sent to the student body.

Douglas Farmer contributed to this report.

The accident happened around 4:50 p.m. at the LaBar Practice Complex, located on the southeast side of campus, according to a University press release.

Sullivan was a resident of Fisher Hall. He was filming a football practice at the LaBar Practice Complex as part of his job for the Department of Athletics’ video crew.

Sullivan was a writer for The Observer and frequently contributed to the Scene section.

University President Fr. John Jenkins notified students in an e-mail Wednesday night.

“No words can convey the shock and grief we all are experiencing. Declan was a well-liked, bright and enthusiastic film and marketing student and a valued member of the Notre Dame family. His death is a tremendous loss that will be felt very deeply and we share in your grief during this incredibly difficult time,” Jenkins said.

Sullivan was filming from a hydraulic scissorlift when the incident occurred. He was transported to Memorial Hospital in South Bend, where he later died.

“We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss,” Jenkins said in an earlier statement. “Our hearts go out to the student’s family and friends and our prayers and profound sympathies are with them during this incredibly difficult time. The loss of someone so young is a terrible shock and a great sadness. Our entire community shares in the family’s grief.”

The cause of the accident is being investigated.

The University will gather tomorrow for a Mass of Remembrance at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at 10 p.m.

Everson, a 21-year-old from Tampa, Fla., suffered two collapsed lungs and severe head injuries after falling down a set of stairs behind the East Campus Union in an event that is believed to have occurred early Friday morning.

A Marketplace employee found Everson unconscious at the bottom of the outdoor stairwell at around 11:30 a.m. Friday Oct. 22, after which Everson was transported to the Duke University Emergency Department.

No criminal activity is suspected, administrators said. Chief John Dailey of the Duke University Police Department referred all comment to Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations.

Everson was in an induced coma until he died around 8 p.m. Saturday Oct. 23, according to administrators.

“There is no other way to describe it but an absolute tragedy,” said Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek. “It’s such an extreme level of sadness that I cannot even describe it. To watch his friends learn about the situation—it’s just devastating.”

At the time of his death, Everson was surrounded by family members, including his parents, his aunt and his brother A.J Everson, who graduated from Duke in 2009. Family members started arriving Friday night to be with Everson.

In a statement released Sunday, the University announced that an ongoing DUPD investigation determined that Everson’s injuries resulted from an “accidental fall,” adding that no details would be available until the end of the inquiry.

Wasiolek said Everson was “out with friends” the night of the accident. Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta added that Everson, a political science major, had left his group of friends to head home alone to his Watts Street apartment off East Campus when the incident occurred.

The outdoor stairwell where Everson was discovered is a “small” staircase with about six to eight stairs, Moneta said. He added that there are some details of the event that “we will never know.”

Wasiolek deferred comment to Dailey regarding the specifics of Everson’s state when he was found. Dailey then directed comment to Schoenfeld, who did not respond to the second request for comment late Sunday night.

Moneta notified the student body of Everson’s injuries at 5:45 p.m. Saturday. The e-mail instructed students to contact Duke Police with pertinent information and Counseling and Psychological Services for assistance.

Schoenfeld wrote in an e-mail that Moneta’s message was prompted because “a number of students and parents were contacting the University having heard inaccurate and incorrect information about the incident.”

Administrators also met with students throughout the weekend.

About 60 to 75 students met with University officials, including Moneta, Wasiolek, Associate Dean of Students Todd Adams and representatives from both CAPS and Residence Life and Housing Services. The meeting was held at Devil’s Den 4 p.m. Saturday and aimed to give an update on Everson’s medical status.

“I don’t think it was a long time after that when it became much clearer that this was not going to be heading in the direction that [the medical staff] had hoped,” Wasiolek added.

About 100 students gathered again to meet with administrators at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, when Everson’s death was announced. Moneta sent another e-mail shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday announcing the death to the entire student body.

At Duke, Everson was a Chronicle columnist in 2008-2009 and a member of the debate team and Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. Pi Kappa Phi President Jordan Stone, a junior, wrote in an e-mail that Duke’s response to the death has been strong.

“The administration has been nothing short of amazing in communicating with those close to Drew and in providing support to all those affected by this numbing tragedy,” he wrote.

President Richard Brodhead and Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education, visited the Everson family at the hospital Sunday.

The University will host a memorial service in the Chapel at noon Wednesday Oct. 27, followed by a reception in the Scharf Commons. The memorial will be open to the student body.

Wasiolek added that Everson’s family may host a private memorial in their hometown of Tampa, Fla., but said Wednesday’s service will be the primary event to commemorate Everson.

“The family very much wanted to have the service at the Duke Chapel,” she said.

There were signs of forced entry into Marcum’s home and signs of a struggle inside, leading Montgomery County Police to treat her death as a potential homicide, according to Daniel Friz, a public information officer.

A friend found Marcum on the lower level of her home and contacted police, according to Montgomery County Police.

The police responded at approximately 10:52 a.m. and found Marcum dead inside.

Marcum’s 1999 tan Jeep Cherokee, with the Virginia license plate YXE-1456, was driven off from the house before 10 a.m.

Friz said AU students should call 911 if they see the vehicle.

Tearful students left Marcum’s 2:10 p.m. Principles of Financial Accounting class Monday after an AU official announced the class was canceled.

Marcum was beloved by many of her students.

As he left the Kogod classroom where Accounting 240 was supposed to be held, student José Ferreiro said Marcum was the most helpful professor he ever had.

“She was always available to answer e-mails and had helpful office hours,” Ferreiro said.

Provost Scott Bass and Richard M. Durand, dean of Kogod, sent an e-mail to the campus community to announce her death.

“Professor Marcum was a beloved member of the Kogod community and her sudden death is a tremendous loss to her students and colleagues,” the e-mail said.

Arielle Sodowick, a sophomore in Kogod, said she was in shock as she left the classroom.

“She was an amazing professor,” Sodowick said.

Marcum graduated from Kogod with an undergraduate degree in Accounting and a Master of Science in Taxation. She received a BSBA in Professional Accounting, also from Kogod.

After working nine years in public accounting, Marcum spent seven years working for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey as tax director, which involved managing the company’s taxes and supervising eight staff, according to the AU website.

She returned to teach at AU in 1999. She served as president of Kogod’s Alumni Chapter and was the faculty adviser to the Kogod Accounting Club and a faculty brother of Alpha Kappa Psi, according to the AU website.

Anyone with information about Marcum’s death is encouraged to call the Montgomery County Police Major Crimes Division at 240-773-5070.

The library’s surveillance tapes, released by the UT Police Department on Wednesday afternoon, show the gunman — later identified as UT mathematics sophomore Colton Tooley — running past theft sensors and waving to the security guard.

Tooley wore a black suit and a ski mask while carrying an AK-47 rifle. According to the tapes, he ran through the lobby of the first floor, turned left and took the stairs to the sixth floor. Tooley took a right after reaching the top floor, but police have not released any footage beyond that point.

Tooley came to the University that Tuesday and fired several rounds on 21st Street near the University Catholic Center before entering the PCL. After reaching the sixth floor, he took his own life. Police locked down the campus for nearly four hours following the shooting in which no one else was injured.

Police radio transmissions suggest UTPD headed the pursuit and investigation while other law enforcement agencies followed their commands.

Initial 911 calls and radio transmissions between officers indicate police received conflicting reports of Tooley’s appearance. Tony Guzman, a project manager for construction services, gave an account to police dispatchers of Tooley dressed in a head covering or “possible turban.”

Austin Police Department officers arrived at the PCL, where they believed Tooley was, at about 8:17 a.m.

“The subject apparently is wearing a mask and carrying an AK-47,” a UTPD officer said.

Following the transmission, another UTPD officer commanded all agencies to institute the campus shut-down plan, which included evacuating everyone on campus and redirecting traffic. Officers learned that Tooley was on the sixth floor at 8:19 a.m. Throughout the radio chatter, one officer’s voice rang out, “Those units, do not enter that building unless you have two or three officers with you.”

At approximately 8:21 a.m., a UTPD officer said they were receiving reports that the suspect may have shot himself, and at 8:25 a.m., officers declared him “apparently deceased.”

Officers received more reports around 8:41 a.m. suggesting there might be a second suspect involved, possibly wearing a black shirt and blue jeans and began searching the surrounding areas with canine units.

“We need to go ahead and search all vehicles in the area,” an officer said. “This guy came from, I believe it was southbound up to the north from MLK. We have a possible crime scene in the alleyway north of PCL, from MLK to 21st Street. Apparently this suspect shot rounds in that area at people.”

UTPD Chief Robert Dahlstrom will hold a press conference Thursday morning to answer questions about the recordings and to provide additional information regarding their investigation into the case.

As he pulled out his semi-automatic weapon, he showed he had every intention of making it everyone else’s last class as well.

He pulled the trigger, waving the gun around the room.

Jammed.

He slammed the clip of the gun on a desk, and again pulled the trigger.

Jammed again.

As he attempted to slam the clip for a second time, a desk came sliding his way and knocked him into the chalkboard, providing time for the rest of the room to clear out.

This isn’t the story of the gunman from Virginia Tech or Northern Illinois University.

This is the story of the attempted shooting at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Oct. 13, 1992.

This story repeated itself in September at the University of Texas at Austin and Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, only with different outcomes.

University shootings have happened before, but every time they happen campuses across the nation become more sensitive to them and wonder if they could have been prevented.

UNL officials say the university is prepared for an event and is also active in prevention of such an event.

UNL’s first and only experience with school shootings was that day in 1992.

Since then, the university has prepared itself for a similar event.

“Had that firearm not jammed, we would have been Virginia Tech a good 15 years before Virginia Tech,” said Robert Portnoy, director of UNL’s Counseling and Psychological Services.

BREAKING POINT

Portnoy said this incident prompted the creation of a trauma response team and eventually  the campus’ Threat Assessment Partnership.

This is a coalition among the campus police force, counseling and psychological services, the dean of students and other campus organizations, aimed at reaching out to those people who exhibit signs of becoming a threat to themselves or others.

“If someone has been identified by a friend, for example, or a faculty member as really struggling, there will be an effort to reach out to this individual and encourage them to seek treatment,” Portnoy said.

Signs that someone may be at risk to become a shooter are similar to those you would find in someone who is becoming depressed.

Students who are withdrawing, uncharacteristically using alcohol and drugs or behaving erratically may be at risk.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody is about to go on some kind of shooting rampage,” Portnoy said.

“It means that their resources are starting to become overwhelmed, their ability to cope, and as a consequence, they need some help. But a very, very small percent of those folks actually become violent.”

Portnoy believes many instances of campus violence can be prevented with proper mental health treatment, and the responsibility is on students and faculty in order to help make UNL a community that helps those in need find that treatment.

This is one of the reasons he emphasizes that UNL is a community that takes care of each other.

He also said he and his colleagues are drafting a University Mental Health Emergency Plan and are in the meeting stages of planning.

Even with all of the planning and time spent on prevention, it is still possible that a shooting could happen at UNL, he said.

“We’ve been very fortunate here at UNL not to have such a horrendous incident even though … we came very close,” Portnoy said.

“But all the planning in the world can’t absolutely protect us.”

FOLLOWING FOOTSTEPS

Sometimes, after a school shooting there are “copycat” shootings, or similar shootings that follow the original event.

Portnoy said when at-risk individuals hear of these incidents, whether it be suicide or shootings, they may be inclined to behave similarly.

“Some of it is just – this sounds simplistic – but just copycat, if you will,” Portnoy said.

“People decide that getting their name out there, even in these horrendous circumstances, is somehow desirable.”

Portnoy said he believes copycat behavior accounts for only a relatively small percentage of shootings that follow another shooting.

He said sometimes individuals have a sense that the fabric of society is falling apart after a campus shooting.

It isn’t, he said, but that perception exists.

As a result, a person may abandon their moral restraint and act in an extreme, violent way.

This contagion effect of extreme acts has been curbed by media down-playing the actual act itself and focusing on the life of the people who committed them.

Portnoy pointed out the first major incident the media took this approach with was Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

“They did not glorify his death, they glorified his life, but they were very clear in all the stories that they did, that this was a product of his depression, not who he was as a person,” he said.

“And as a consequence, the contagion effect was quite a bit smaller than what would have predicted otherwise.”

NEW TEXT MESSAGE: ALERT

The UNL emergency planning committee has prepared extensively for potential active shooter situations on campus, said Kelly Bartling, manager of news for University Communications.

When campus shootings happen around the nation, the committee meets to discuss what was handled well and what could’ve been handled differently.

It gives the committee an opportunity to think about what would have happened under similar circumstances at UNL.

Bartling said one of the most useful tools the campus has is UNL Alert.

It is the primary message-delivery system on campus.

This emergency alert system sends messages to students and faculty through cell phones, landlines, fax-machines and e-mail.

It even allows students to select which alerts are most convenient for them.

A similar alert system was used by the University of Texas at Austin during last month’s shooting.

Lydia Schendel, a freshman journalism major at UT, was in class at the time of the shooting and said the alert system was quick and helpful in confirming that the shooting was really happening.

“The first thing that happened, at about 8:15, was four students ran in from outside and one of them said they heard gunshots,” Schendel said.

“But it wasn’t really verified until we got the text messages that came out from the school. That was really the first believable notification of what was going on.”

Further alerts directed students not to leave class or their dorm rooms and gave further safety tips.

UNL’s alert system is very similar to UT’s in its abilities to communicate with students quickly, as well as requiring students sign up to receive alerts.

For this reason, Bartling encouraged students to sign up for alerts at http://emergency.unl.edu.

This is especially important for new students who may be unaware of the alert system and may be confused about what to do when an emergency happens.

The website also has tips on what to do in active shooter instances and a video called “Shots Fired” with information on what students and faculty should do.

“People may not think about what they would do right now if a shooter walked in to their office or their classroom,” Bartling said.

“But it’s important to get people to think about what they would do. Would they run and hide? Would they try to take aggressive action towards the shooter and knock him or her down?”

Bartling said students and faculty must play an important role in preventing these types of situations before they occur, acting as the eyes of the police.

“You cannot have a gun on this campus,” Bartling said.

“So if there’s ever a time where someone sees someone with a gun, that information needs to be immediately reported to police and police need to immediately send an alert letting people know what to look for, where, what time and what to do.”

Investigators believed the University was not fully cooperating with the investigation of 18-year-old Clementi – who committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge shortly after Ravi’s alleged actions – two officials unauthorized to speak because of the case’s ongoing nature told the Ledger.

“The investigation is continuing and we can’t comment further,” the prosecutor’s spokesman James O’Neill told the Ledger.

University spokesman E.J. Miranda said the Rutgers University Police Department and the University is working with the prosecutor’s office in the investigation.

A subpoena is required in some instances before the University can release certain confidential student records federally protected by FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, he said.

“Confidential student records covered under FERPA include student grades, student conduct records, and electronic communication between the student and University administrators,” Miranda said.

The fine? A whopping $86,000.

Tracy, along with roommates Travis Ludy and Mitchell Klatt, hosted a house party which, according to an MPD report, attracted over 200 people. Each roommate received 21 charges for encouraging underage alcohol consumption, one count each for alcohol distribution without a permit and 21 citations for procuring alcohol to an underage person, the report added.

MPD Sgt. Tony Fiore said the fine was so high because the three roommates encouraged partiers to stay at their house after police arrived. He said police decided to bust the party because they believed the number of people that crammed into the house created a safety hazard.

“There was a huge number of people inside in a house that is not equipped in any fashion to handle the number of people,” Fiore said. “We’re not looking through people’s drawers or things like that, we’re looking for people who might be in a medical emergency.“

Fiore said the counts against the three students were referred to the city attorney’s office because the incident incurred more costs and charges than the average house party bust.

Citations and charges as numerous and large as the North Brooks Street incident are not common to Madison parties, Fiore said. He added the fact the hosts did not voluntarily comply with MPD officers contributed to the large fines.

Fiore said a number of alcohol-motivated crimes, including sexual assault, battery and burglaries to the hosts are common with large parties.

Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said he thought MPD publicized the incident to “make an example” of the three residents. He added the charges will probably be settled out of court.

“Their fines will be cut substantially,” Verveer said. “The sophomore slums over there have been notorious for house parties, and this house in particular sticks out.”

Fiore said MPD decided to raid the party solely because of safety concerns.

“We were all in college…we understand there’s fear and anxiety,” Fiore said. “We’re not holding that against them.”

Six law enforcement agencies are beginning internal investigations of their respective responses to the U. Texas campus shooting last week, an Austin Police Department official announced on Monday.

UT mathematics sophomore Colton Tooley came to campus Tuesday morning with an AK-47 and fired up to 10 rounds on 21st Street, near the University Catholic Center. Tooley then ran into the Perry-Castañeda Library, where he took his own life.

Following the incident, police locked down the University for nearly four hours and later closed the campus for the day.

The Travis County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Austin Independent School District Police, the FBI and the Austin and UT police departments responded to the incident.

“Any time we respond to a critical incident, we always debrief the situation to figure out what areas are things we can improve upon: How was communication, how was our leadership, did people understand their areas of responsibility,” said David Carter, APD chief of staff. “This could go on for quite a while because the investigation is still ongoing.”

Both APD and UTPD did not have any updates, and campus police spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said UTPD Chief Robert Dahlstrom remains adamant that no other details of the case will be released until detectives complete the investigation. Weldon said UTPD is currently putting together a package of the 911 calls, dashboard camera and security footage, which is expected to be released this week.

“What transpired here?” Carter asked. “What motivated this individual? Those are the questions people want to understand, and we’ll have to sort through that.”

The agencies are collaboratively investigating the case and supporting UTPD in whatever they may need, Carter said. He said officers will look at every angle, from tapes to transmissions, regarding the internal assessment.

“There were some really good things that did occur in terms of response, some things that had not occurred in recent memory — like putting all of the guys that were there on the same channel so that we could all hear each other,” Carter said.

Carter said the joint training session between UTPD and APD nearly two months ago helped the officers work together during the incident.

“Even though the officers are individually trained in each department, training is a bit different when you bring officers from different agencies together and say, ‘Here’s what needs to happen,’” he said. “They develop their own vernacular, so you need to bring them together so they can work through those issues.”

Family and friends of the U. Texas gunman, Colton Tooley, attended his funeral services Sunday afternoon.

Funeral services took place at Angel Funeral Homes on South First Street in Austin, Texas.

Tooley, 19, came to campus Tuesday with an AK-47 and fired several rounds on 21st Street, near the University Catholic Center, before taking his own life. Police locked down the campus for nearly four hours following the shooting, and no one else was injured.

UT Police Department and the Austin Police Department have not released any new information since the incident, but APD Chief of Staff David Carter will give a briefing during the Public Safety Commission’s meeting Monday at 4 p.m.

Attorney Paul Mainardi, who represents the Clementi family, issued a statement on its behalf.

“The family is heartbroken beyond words,” Mainardi said. “They respectfully request that they be given time to grieve their great loss and that their privacy at this painful time be respected by all.”

University President Richard L. McCormick, who spoke with Clementi’s parents to extend his own sympathies as well as the University’s, expressed a similar sentiment. “We grieve for him and for his family, friends and classmates as they deal with the tragic loss of a gifted young man who was a strong student and a highly accomplished musician,” he said. “We will continue to respect the family’s request for privacy.” McCormick urged the University community to honor Clementi’s life with civility, dignity, compassion and respect for one another.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office is considering the motives behind an alleged Internet transmission of a personal encounter that involved Clementi, who committed suicide last week.

Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River Sept. 22, according to a statement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. An autopsy of the body, which was found yesterday, showed that he died of drowning and blunt impact injury to the torso, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Dharun Ravi and Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy first-year student Molly Wei are charged with two counts each of invasion of privacy after allegedly recording Clementi’s involvement in sexual acts with another male in his room in Davidson Hall C on Busch campus, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said.

Ravi faces two additional charges for attempting to watch and transmit similar footage involving Clementi on a different date.

“Now that two individuals have been charged with invasion of privacy, we will be making every effort to assess whether bias played a role in the incident, and, if so, we will bring appropriate charges,” Kaplan said.

Under the state’s statutes, it is a fourth-degree crime to view images depicting nudity or sexual contact involving another individual without that person’s consent and a third-degree crime to transmit or distribute them.

The penalty for conviction of a third-degree offense can include a prison term of up to five years.

Ravi and Wei have both been released, he said. The date for a court hearing has not yet been set.

The investigation is ongoing, the prosecutor’s office said.

Although no official source has purported that a relationship between the two exists, a message board thread on justusboys.com, an online community for homosexual males, features posts about scenarios similar to those that took place last week in Davidson Hall, according to screenshots of the site on gawker.com.

Under the alias “cit2mo,” a member of the community posted a message in reaction to his roommate spying on him on Sept. 21, according to the website. That and other posts described events that paralleled those involving Clementi and Ravi.

According to the posts, “cit2mo” was upset that his roommate had used a webcam to spy on him and a guest on two separate nights last week. He then filled out a request for a room change so that he could move to a new location.

“I ran to the nearest [resident assistant] and set this thing in motion,” he wrote on Sept. 22, after observing posts about the occurrences his roommate put on Twitter.

A later post from “cit2mo” indicated that the RA seemed to take it seriously when he received an e-mail from “cit2mo” regarding the incident, according to the posts.

University spokesman Greg Trevor did not comment on the incidents involving Clementi specifically, but he did say that for the University, meeting students’ housing needs is a priority.

“The University does have well-established procedures in place to deal with requests for residents to switch roommates,” he said. “If a resident requests a new roommate, the staff makes every effort to accommodate that request as soon as possible.”

Tooley was known as an intelligent but reserved student. Biology freshman Deborah Alemu said the mug shot of the 19-year-old provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety, which was featured in several media outlets this week, was not an accurate portrayal of Tooley. She described him as harmless and always helpful to other students.

Undeclared freshman Andres Chable said Tooley seemed to be a normal teenager.

“I always knew that he wasn’t the most social guy, but what he lacked in social skills he made up for in brains,” said Chable, who attended public school with Tooley. “He was a great guy, and it is truly sad to know that he was pushed to the limit.”

UT officials identified Tooley as the gunman who fired several rounds from an assault rifle on 21st Street, near the University Catholic Center, shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday. Tooley then ran into the Perry-Castañeda Library before he took his own life, authorities said.

Class assignments written by Tooley and obtained by The Daily Texan show a fascination with the debate over gun control policy in the U.S.

In Fall 2009, his first semester at UT, Tooley wrote a proposal for a research paper in an introductory rhetoric course that said arguments between his parents over the issue only piqued his interest in the firearm debate.

“I’ve grown up in a household where my mother is absolutely appalled by guns, and my dad grew up with them out in rural Oklahoma and sees them as an extraordinary part of life,” Tooley wrote in the proposal.

The assignment required students to present an idea about a controversial, contemporary issue, and Tooley said he was most interested in researching public perception of gun control in the U.S. over the last 20 years, especially after the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings. Tooley said he had read several books on the subject and watched films, including Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine.”

“I have also been to a few gun shows and learned what the people behind the counters, selling AR-15’s, Kalashnikovs, Berettas, etc. have to say on the issue, both by talking to them and by reading their T-shirts,” he wrote. He said in addition to news articles, he could use material distributed by the NRA at the next gun show he attended.

Tooley’s father, Dennis, declined to comment for this article.

Colton Tooley was born and adopted in Houston and spent most of his life in Austin, according to a personal introduction he wrote. He described himself as “socially detached,” in another assignment. Acquaintances and classmates confirmed that he mostly kept to himself. Tooley said he had a cell phone that he used to check the time and never created a Facebook profile.

Business freshman Arthur Garibay II said Tooley never really talked about his personal life.

“A lot of people knew him as the guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said Garibay, a graduate of Crockett High School.

Twenty-three students from Crockett High School, including Tooley, entered UT in the fall 2009 semester. Multiple students from that class who were contacted for this article declined to comment.

Two members of Tooley’s graduating high school class began a Facebook group, “R.I.P. Colton Tooley,” to allow people to send their condolences to his family. The group had about 300 members by Wednesday night, and Garibay said the class wanted to hold a memorial at the school.

“I’m starting here as a freshman majoring in mathematics with only a vague sense of what is in store for me,” Tooley wrote in his introduction to the class. “All I know is that for the next four years, I expect to make the PCL my home for its air conditioning, silence and ample privacy on the upper floors.”

— Additional reporting by Daniel Sanchez

If an on-campus emergency were to happen, Oklahoma U.’s communication system is prepared to notify students as soon as possible, according to Chris Shilling, university spokesman.

In light of any on-campus emergency, students, faculty and staff should call 911, which will notify OUPD. OUPD then triggers the emergency response system, which alerts students, faculty and staff of the emergency.

Blackboard ConnectEd, OU’s emergency system, was installed around the time of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007. It has multiple data centers around the U.S. so even if a disaster like a fire or tornado affects OU’s communication abilities, another off-campus data center anywhere in the nation can send out texts, calls and e-mails to ensure the safety of OU’s students, said Nick Key, OU Information Technology spokesman.

“We exhaust all communication strategies possible,” said Shilling.

Text messages are usually sent out within a minute of system activation, while phone calls often take 10-20 minutes, Key said. The system has the ability to detect whether a live person answers or if a voicemail is being left and will call numbers that do not answer a second time.

“E-mail is a secondary form of communication in cases of emergencies,” Key said.

Not only do e-mails take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to send out, the general population does not check their e-mail nearly as frequently as their phones, Key said.

Students can log onto their account at account.ou.edu and update their emergency information. The system allows students to enter up to six phone numbers, one text messaging number and one e-mail address.

On campus, loud speakers are set up on both the Norman and Health Sciences Center campuses that allow officials to communicate with every person on campus and direct people to safe areas or inform them about areas to avoid or provide any other precautionary information, Shilling said.

Few parts of the Norman campus do not yet have these speakers, but in time they will be fully installed.

“This system is being implemented as we speak,” Shilling said.

Layers of communication are used to effectively inform executive officers about emergencies and execute emergency plans and decisions. OU’s Emergency Response Plan, which was most recently updated in July, outlines an Executive Emergency Notification Phone Tree that is to be used during emergencies.

OU executive officers attend monthly training sessions to learn how to deal with emergency situations ranging from gas leaks to shooters on campus, Shilling said. University officials are required to be Federal Emergency Management Agency trained, he said.

Anyone witnessing an emergency should call 911, as those officials are trained to take the steps necessary to activate the university’s online systems and take action.

The Presidential Advisory Council for Campus Safety conducted a Campus Safety Perception Survey in April 2010 and lighting was identified as a concern, said Joe Adams, director of Environmental Health and Safety, in an e-mail.

During the past two years, OU’s Student Senate has voted on resolutions or listened to presentations regarding problems with campus lighting. Most recently, OU added lights to Emeriti Park on Oxbow Drive.

“Outside lighting on campus is definitely a concern, but it cannot necessarily be measured in numerical terms,” said Elizabeth Herron, an at-large student senator for University Life.

The main areas of concern include Jeff Hill and around Baker University Center.

“The primary area identified on campus was the area between Baker Center and Clippinger/Edwards Accelerator,” Adams said.

No specific amount of money is set aside to pay for improvements to outside lighting on campus, he said, adding that OU uses money from the general maintenance fund and other improvement projects for upgrades.

Baker Center and Jeff Hill are not the only places where students would like to see more lighting.

There are some areas “in deep South” that could use more, said Marissa Couto, a junior studying psychology.

“Overall, they do a pretty good job,” she said.

Good outside lighting does not always guarantee safety, however.

“Walking alone is a concern no matter how bright the lighting is,” Herron said.

OU reported seven forcible rapes in 2007, four more than the previous year, according to the most recent Clery Report. OU also reported 48 burglaries in 2007, compared to 45 in 2006.

The Clery Report, released annually, details the number of crimes committed on or near college campuses.

Increased outside lighting is not likely to have a significant impact on safety and crime rates, said OU Police Chief Andrew Powers.

“We strive to educate students and raise awareness about crime prevention and personal safety, as these methods are more likely to help students reduce their chances of becoming a victim of crime,” Powers said.

The advisory committee is still reviewing the results of the safety survey.

“A new lighting standard is being developed, and areas not meeting this standard will be upgraded,” said Adams.

As one of four winners in categories distinguished by population size, the EPD is an example of “community policing at its best,” the news release noted.

This is the first time EPD has been selected for the award since the accolade’s creation in 1998, said Todd Miller, the director of IACP’s Community Policing Committee.

“We don’t give out an award just to give an award,” Miller said, adding that no agency serving populations between 100,001 and 250,000 residents met IACP’s expectations for quality.

Miller explained that the award recognizes law enforcement agencies in 140 member countries for exemplary interpretation of community policing, a philosophy that encourages departments to solve problems through partnerships in the area. In two rounds, a total of 37 judges examined the involvement of the entire agency, the relationships developed in the community, the quality of planning, the initiatives taken and the transportability of one agency’s experiences to another organization facing similar problems.

Miller said EPD impressed judges with two programs. The first, crime prevention through environmental design, required EPD members to ask citizens what in their neighborhoods was fostering crime, and resulted in a significant decrease in illegal activity. The second program, the Safer Neighborhood Area Project, focused on improving crime rates on the 1900 block of Jackson Avenue. In 2007, that block generated 1,200 calls for police attention, but Miller said that by working to rebuild trust with citizens, EPD saw a 70% drop in crime.

The EPD will be honored at a private reception for the winners, finalists and specially recognized departments on Oct. 24 and at IACP’s Annual Conference Banquet in Orlando on Oct. 27.

“It’s a great reflection on the Evanston Police Department and the community. It shows the value of partnerships,” Miller said. “Evanston should be proud of their agency.”

Campus administrators identified the gunman as 19-year-old mathematics sophomore Colton Tooley.

A half-dozen law enforcement agencies, including the Austin Police Department, University of Texas Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Austin Independent School District Police Department, responded to the shooting and its aftermath.

Officials said no students were hurt in the shooting, although a couple of students were mildly injured during the evacuation process.

“I am grateful to our campus community for the way it responded to the emergency that took place at the Perry-Castañeda Library [Tuesday] morning,” UT President William Powers Jr. said in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon. “I extend my sympathy to the family, friends and classmates of the young student who took his life.”

The lockdown was lifted at 12:15 p.m. The University was then closed and nonessential personnel were released for the remainder of Tuesday. UT shuttles routes ran, but only in the outbound direction so students and staff could get home, said UT spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon.

The incident began just after 8 a.m. as Tooley walked from 21st Street near Guadalupe Street, heading deeper into campus wearing a dark suit, ski mask and carrying an AK-47 in his hand.

The University sent the first emergency text messages warning of an armed man on campus at 8:23 a.m. The message was quickly followed by a warning from UT officials for students and staff to find shelter and lock all doors.

“He had a black mask and he was walking down the street,” said Ruben Cordoba, a maintenance worker at Dobie Center who was working on the plaza level of the dormitory, which is three stories above 21st Street. “I thought he was joking because he had an AK-47 in his hand … I heard three shots to the left and three shots to the right.”

Other eyewitnesses said they heard as many as 10 shots, and said they thought he was shooting at the University Catholic Church and the South Mall. After shooting, he continued to run toward the PCL.

Lawrence Peart, an international relations junior, was locking up his bike at the library when he heard the first gun shots. He said a taxi came down the street honking its horn to warn the students, but he didn’t think much of it until he saw students running.

“So I start advancing toward the entrance and a man — pretty tall in a black business suit, ski mask and an AK-47 — runs in front of me, so I froze,” Peart said. “He was running down the 21st Street along that brick wall that’s beside the PCL and he glances over at me. He looked at me in the eyes then waved his arm as if to say, ‘Don’t come in here. Go away.’”

Officers chased Tooley off the street and into the library, said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo. Once inside, Tooley ran to the stairwell and climbed the stairs to the sixth floor, where he took his own life at 8:50 a.m., Acevedo said.

“Almost immediately, members of [APD] and [UTPD] ended up on campus, spotted the suspect and gave chase to that suspect,” Acevedo said. “I want to commend the students of the University of Texas that led the way to the suspect — that as our officers ran and tried to find and chase after him, the students kept pointing [the officers] in the right direction.”

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, tactical response teams from APD and DPS searched surrounding buildings for a rumored second suspect. However, officials ruled out any such possibility and said that reports of a second suspect resulted from conflicting descriptions of the shooter.

UTPD Chief Robert Dahlstrom and Acevedo credited joint exercises between both agencies for the quick response and lack of fatalities.

“There’s no doubt that the training paid off in this situation and prevented a much more tragic situation than what we had happen this morning,” Dahlstrom said.

— Additional reporting by Gerald Rich

At 8:12 a.m. Tuesday, a caller alerted the U. Texas Police Department to the presence of a masked gunman on campus. Seven minutes later, the dispatcher sent a text message warning 53,000 people, and the University siren sounded five minutes later. Shortly afterward, eight UTPD officers and two Austin police officers chased the man up the stairs to the sixth floor. At 9:53 a.m., police announced the gunman was dead on the sixth floor of the Perry-Castañeda Library.

UTPD Chief Robert Dahlstrom said the procedure for this sort of situation is simple — start the hunt and eliminate the threat before anyone gets hurt. UTPD sent every officer they had on hand to respond.

“Once they got on the sixth floor, they found him fairly quickly,” Dahlstrom said. “They called it in, saying he was down.”

But UTPD couldn’t give the all-clear yet as rumors spread of a second gunman. The police department began setting up a perimeter with road blocks and electronically locked down 23 nearby buildings, sweeping the area with APD and Travis County SWAT, Texas Rangers and UTPD. An armored SWAT vehicle sat near the library as well.

The protocol for clearing the campus of additional unknown shooters was clear: Establish a perimeter, search campus buildings and keep students in classrooms until their buildings were cleared.

Students were told to barricade their classrooms.

In Calhoun Hall, engineering sophomore Mark Divalerio sat with other students barricaded for two hours in his classroom. The second shooter was thought to be in the area of the building, so when a student in the hallway tried to open the classroom door, they almost panicked, Divalerio said.

“They tried to open up the barricaded doors; that was scary, but other than that we just turned out the lights and hung out,” he said.

Eventually, the rumors subsided and the police departments decided the campus was safe.

“We had information that possibly there was another shooter, and that just comes from the excitement, but we can’t just say, ‘Oh, that’s all it is,’” Dahlstrom said. “We have to check it out until we feel very comfortable.”

A significant number of agents from the FBI arrived on the scene, helping local authorities as a matter of practice, said FBI spokesman Erik Vasys. The FBI is currently helping the police departments shed light on the shooter’s background. In Tuesday’s shooting response, Vasys said the FBI personnel were present mostly in case UTPD or APD officers tired out.

“We didn’t have to put forth a tactical response, but we had one prepared if they needed backup,” he said. “A lot of times manpower gets worn out from the heat when something turns out to be long-term, so we’ll back them up.”

Huguely is charged with the homicide of fellow U. Virginia student and lacrosse player Yeardley Love, who was found dead in her apartment last May.

Charlottesville General District Court Judge Robert Downer, Jr. will hear arguments about whether there is enough evidence to certify the trial to be heard by the Circuit Court, Charlottesville General District Court Clerk Mary Alice Trimble said.

Cameras will be prevented from entering the courtroom, according to the Daily Progress. Downer denied a media request for such amid fears such media exposure could complicate the search for an untainted jury.

The trial has been set for 1 p.m.

But today, he temporarily put the U. Texas campus on lockdown after bringing an AK-47 rifle to campus and firing multiple shots before ending his own life on the sixth floor of the Perry-Castaneda Library. No other students were injured in the incident.

Craig Shapiro, principal of Crockett High School, said Tooley graduated seventh in his class and excelled in every subject.

“His teachers recall him with words such as brilliant, meticulous, and respectful,” Shapiro said.

In high school, none of his classmates would have suspected that Tooley was capable of violence, said journalism junior Rachel Platis, a high school classmate of Tooley and a former Daily Texan staffer.

“He was a quiet boy,” Platis said. “He was always so respectful and sweet.”

Mathematics senior Devon Sepeta said Tooley was not the most popular student in high school, but one gave him any trouble.

knew Tooley in high school as not the most popular kid, but said no one gave him any trouble.

“We always had a good time in the classroom,” Wilson said. “He helped everyone that asked for it. Of all people at UT, I never would have thought it would have been him.”

Wilson said he doesn’t understand why Tooley didn’t come to someone for help before ending his life.

“I talked to him last semester, but I haven’t been able to this semester,” he said.

U. Texas spokesman Don Hale said the gunman who opened fire at the University this morning has been confirmed as 19-year-old Colton Tooley, a math sophomore. Tooley did not seek mental health services at the University, Hale said.

U. Texas was put under lockdown just after 8 a.m., after at least six shots were fired on campus by an unknown gunman. The gunman is now confirmed dead.

Authorities were investigating reports of a second suspect, however police have offered no details about him and have declined to call him a “second shooter.”

Dobie maintenance worker Rueben Cordoba was working on the plaza level of the complex, which is three stories above the street. He said the initial suspect and only confirmed gunman was described as a young man wearing all black and a ski mask.

Cordoba said he saw the gunman walking down 21st Street from Gualadupe Street towards campus, carrying an automatic weapon.

As the gunman approached the University Catholic Center, he fired three shots in the direction of the church and then another three shots towards the South Mall, which is directly across the street.

The gunman then walked towards the Perry-Castañeda Library. He was found dead on the sixth floor of the building and police officials said he committed suicide. There were an unknown number of shots fired in the library, police said.

University spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said this morning that no one was hurt, other than the shooter who killed himself. Weldon said police will begin an “orderly evacuation” of the campus. All UT shuttles will resume operation with the exceptions of the Forty Acres and East Campus, according to an e-mail from Capital Metro spokesman Adam Shaivitz. She said the investigation has tightened to the area directly around the PCL.

Classes and scheduled campus events will resume tomorrow.

An armored police vehicle drives up to the Perry-Castañeda Library on the U. Texas-Austin campus in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010.

Officers prepare to enter Calhoun Hall at U. Texas in Austin, Texas on Tuesday Sept. 28, 2010. A gunman opened fire Tuesday inside the Perry-Castaneda Library then fatally shot himself, and police are searching for a possible second suspect, university police said.

The houses of Tracy Molm, an off-and-on University student, Mick Kelly, a University Dining Service chef, Jessica Sundin, a clerical worker in the physiology department, and Anh-Thu T Pham, an executive accounts specialist in the Office of Academic Affairs were the subjects of early-morning raids.

“We did six federal search warrants in the city of Minneapolis,” FBI spokesman Steve Warfield said. “They are seeking evidence related to an ongoing joint terrorism task force investigation. It concerns the material support of terrorism. There’s no imminent threat to the community, and no arrests are planned.”

Warfield said two other addresses were raided in Chicago, and that related interviews were taking place “throughout the country.”

Both Molm and Aby said they were subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Chicago in October.

Molm is an active member of protest group Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota.

Sundin, who lives with her partner, Steff Yorek, and their daughter, said the FBI arrived at around seven a.m. Friday, and stayed for roughly four hours. She said they took boxes filled with papers, money, pictures, computers, her cell phone, and “some of my awesome music CDs.”

Sundin said the search warrant was connected to her work with the Anti-War Committee and a trip she took to Colombia in 2000.

“I don’t know what they’re looking for,” Sundin said. “But I do know that I’ve been an outspoken activist for peace and justice, opposing U.S. government intervention in other countries, including Colombia, which was one of the places listed on the warrant.”

Sundin is currently on medical leave from the University.

Kelly said he was the subject of a similar early raid.

“They broke down a door, smashed a fish tank, and went through my books and papers,” Kelly said.

Kelly described himself as a 40-year veteran of the peace movement.

Kelly has a history of incidents involving protest activities. In the fall of 2008 he threatened to sue the city of St. Paul after he was injured by a police projectile while protesting the Republican National Convention.

In February 2009, Kelly settled with the city of St. Paul regarding a separate incident in which he was arrested while handing out fliers at a 2008 Barack Obama rally.

Kelly also edits FightBack!News. On its website, the organization states, “the writers and staff of FightBack! are activists and organizers – in the trade unions, low-income community, oppressed nationality movements, on the campuses, and in other people’s movements.”

Also raided on Friday morning was the home of Meredith Aby, another member of the Anti-War Committee. After a press conference held at Sundin’s house, Aby said the FBI took two computers, her cell phone, and boxes of fliers and meeting notebooks.

The sixth Minneapolis address raided Friday was the Anti-War Committee office, located in the University Technology Center on Fifth Street in Dinkytown.

Joe Iosbaker’s home was one of two Chicago addresses raided in connection with the Minneapolis investigation. Iosbaker, whose Fightback!News biography describes him as a clerical worker at the University of Chicago, said that 20 FBI agents spent more than eight hours searching the house he shares with his wife, Stephanie Weiner. Iosbaker described agents “going through every piece of paper, every photograph, every CD, every – everything in our house.”

Iosbaker said he was familiar with those targeted in the Minneapolis raids.

“We all worked together in the protest against the Republican National Convention in 2008,” Iosbaker said.

Told that the search warrant against some of those raided in Minneapolis alluded to connections and trips to countries like Colombia and Lebanon, Iosbaker said he believed the warrant for his property was the same.

Molm said that when the FBI arrived at her home, she was wearing her bathrobe. She described an FBI agent telling her to sit on the couch and not move as others searched her belongings, and an agent following her to the bathroom.

Molm said police took her computer, phone, a scarf with the Palestinian flag on it, an iPod Touch and her bank statements.

University spokeswoman Patty Mattern said the University would not take any action in response to Friday’s raids.

“It’s obviously possible that we would take action if there were arrests or charges,” she said.

The report, issued on Sept. 13 by LGBT advocacy group Campus Pride, found bigotry toward LGBT students in primary and secondary schools often continues at the college level.

The study, titled “The 2010 State of Higher Education for LGBT People,” surveyed 5,150 individuals from more than 100 universities across the country.

Despite Campus Pride’s findings, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts spokesman Christopher Ott said very few cases of harassment toward LGBT students on college campuses are brought to the organization.

“Most of the people that come to us with cases of bigotry or hate toward gay and lesbian students are at the middle and high school level,” Ott said. “It may be because we live in a fairly open-minded state, but we’ve had to deal with very few cases on college campuses.”

Jordan Rossman, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said homophobia at Boston U. is “a complete non-issue.”

“BU’s almost laughably welcoming,” he said. “I didn’t come out when I was in high school and when I came here, within a month I came out and it wasn’t a big deal at all.”

However, Rossman said he did experience hostility during an Alternative Spring Break trip his freshman year in Washington, D.C.

“This one night we were staying in this kind of questionable area. . . at night me and my group were approached by this guy who started talking to us and he asked if I was a faggot and I didn’t know how to respond to that,” he said. “It wasn’t that I was insulted, but it made me appreciate the fact that no one at BU would come up to me and say that.”

Other BU students agreed that overt acts of hate and bigotry toward LGBT students are absent on BU’s campus.

“If you go to a liberal school like BU, you don’t see a lot of unfair treatment of gay students,” said College of Communication junior Megan Lovallo.

While Lovallo said she doesn’t see discrimination toward the LGBT community at BU, she said she believes bigotry does exist on campuses around the country.

“I could see where harassment could come up at different kinds of universities,” she said.

College of Arts and Sciences senior Erik Olson said BU seems to be a “really accepting” place for LGBT students.

“I’m in the gospel choir and there is a LGBT group within the choir that announces things to do with their group and everyone is super chill and happy to hear what they say,” he said.

Ian Hatfield, a School of Management junior, said though he doesn’t think of BU as an unfriendly atmosphere for LGBT students, he understands where some level of bigotry could infiltrate what is otherwise an extremely liberal university.

“I don’t think there’s a lot [of hate] around BU, but adults influence their kids which could bring some bigotry onto campus,” he said.

COM junior Rick Sobey said in his three years at BU, he hasn’t noticed any open act of hate toward gay or lesbian students.

“I’m obviously not witnessing everything around campus, but I am a junior and have never seen a hate crime directed at gay people,” he said.

“There’s an awareness and appreciation at BU and it’s a really healthy environment,” Rossman said.

Baylor has suspended every program in Mexico, with the exception of the law school in Guadalajara, until the conditions change, said Dr. Michael Morrison, director of the Center for International Education. Guadalajara has not experienced the violence seen along the northern border of Mexico and in Monterrey.

More than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug traffickers in late 2006.

Two Baylor students studied in Monterrey in the spring. Following an outbreak of violence outside the gates of Monterrey Tech, Baylor arranged for one student to return immediately and worked with the other student and the student’s parents to determine that the student would remain for the last few weeks to finish the Monterrey Tech program.

“We are not currently taking students on that program, as Monterrey is one of the most dangerous places,” Morrison said.

Dr. Sijefredo Loa, associate professor of Spanish, directed the last Baylor in Mexico program to Xalapa, Veracruz, in June 2009.

“There are a few facts that are very alarming,” Loa said. “The road blocks the cartels have set up, for instance. They’re stopping tourists with vans and buses because they want to check the traffic. So this has alarmed and scared a lot of people.”

The drug cartels in the interior and northern parts of the country have forced Baylor to re-examine its annual study abroad trips to Mexico.

“In April we were getting ready for the 2010 trip and were not getting the response we wanted,” Loa said. “I think I had just four students committed to going. It is expensive and we decided to cancel because we didn’t want to risk the safety of our students.”

Loa said he hopes programs will eventually return to Mexico because it is an important cultural partner with the United States. He said Baylor will return as soon as the perceptions of violence change.

Loa said there’s one city in particular that he wants to explore.

“Zacatecas is in the mountains in Northern Central Mexico,” he said. “It is dry, cool during the summer. It has culture, so many attractions and it seems to be very unique in its offerings.”

Students have shared extensive reviews with Loa about their independent trips to Zacatecas and he hopes to set up a program to tap into those experiences.

The trip would be inexpensive in comparison to other study abroad trips. However, because of its northern location it would be another two to three years before Baylor would be able to think about taking students there, Loa said.

Baylor does offer other study abroad opportunities in other countries for students who would be inclined to study in Mexico.

“Latin American Studies has an Argentina program and we have two in Spain. Plus, we have exchange programs to Costa Rica,” Loa said. “It’s not like our students will go to other universities because we don’t have programs — they will just go to other programs.”

Morrison said the increased violence in Mexico negatively affects international students at Baylor, too.

“Students from China and all 74 countries represented at Baylor can find themselves needing to update immigration documents, and by law you have to leave the country to do that,” Morrison said. “Some students may decide to go back home to update their documents, while some may choose to go to Mexico because it is less expensive. We caution if they decide to do that. We are looking into finding a way that we might be able to make that possible through the cooperation of American universities on the border, but we do not have anythin