In the span of one month, multiple students have been robbed at gunpoint at different locations, shots were fired on East State Street, an Ohio University student was stabbed in front of Courtside and eight fires were set inside of Tiffin Hall.
But this is far from Athens’ worst, said Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle.
“As a matter of fact, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it was normal for it to be more violent,” Pyle said. “Fights and assaults are not what they used to be. When I started here, we used to roll up on fights and there would be 30 people involved or there would be fraternity wars — that sort of thing.”
Pyle said he remembers nights when there would be three police officers working, the cruiser lights would turn on at the start of a shift and not turn off until two or three in the morning. While that was as much a staffing issue as it was activity, those were different times, he added.
“It used to be if you rolled up on a bar fight, it was a real bar fight and you would have to get in there and wrestle people apart and get them off of each other,” Pyle said. “Now, we get a fight and it’s over when we get there, people run away. It’s not much of a fight, just a sucker punch or something like that.”
However, Pyle acknowledged that the recent trend is a change from last semester.
“It definitely has changed, but it’s about peaks and valleys,” he said. “And now we just happen to be in a peak.”
Though there is no update on this past weekend’s Courtside stabbing, there is a suspect in custody regarding last week’s shots fired on East State Street, Pyle said.
“I know they are working on it … I know they have a suspect, but I can’t confirm any traits,” he said.
Since the investigations surrounding the Station Street armed robbery and Tiffin Hall arson are ongoing, the OU Police Department doesn’t have any updates, said Chief of Police Andrew Powers.
No one has been charged in either case.
“Starting a fire in an occupied building like that — there were eight fires — it was dangerous,” Powers said. “We had a structure that was occupied by people sleeping at that time. It’s a pretty serious matter.”
Powers and Pyle spoke Saturday morning about the Courtside stabbing, and after checking with each department, Powers didn’t feel there was an ongoing threat to the campus, which is why he didn’t issue a crime alert.
“I would be a lot more concerned if we had a string of a particular type of offense that would indicate that we would have a person stalking the campus,” he said. “That’s not the case. Typically we will (issue an alert) if we feel it is something that is an ongoing threat.”
For the robbery and arson, the first of which caused OU to shut down its Athens campus for the first time 43 years for non-weather related reasons, Powers was legally bound by the Cleary Act to issue crime alerts.
Alexandra Fisher, a senior studying marketing and MIS, said she still feels safe going out in Athens.
“The only time I wouldn’t feel safe is if I’m walking home alone late at night,” Fisher said. “Not that it would make me not do it, but I would think twice about it and make sure my phone was out to be prepared just in case something happens. The recent crimes haven’t made me think about it more.”
The winter months almost always see an increase in fights uptown, Pyle said, since people spend a lot of time drinking in a hot, sweaty environment in the bars, then go outside and are hit by the freezing cold.
He believes this puts them in a bad mood.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say it drops in the spring time, but people are more spread out doing other things that we don’t see as much of it in the (Uptown) area,” Pyle said.
Athens is still a safe town statistically speaking, Pyle said.
The city has its fair share of crime, but in terms of percentages and per-capita rates, it’s still a very safe place to be, he said.
“I get that people are concerned about crime and certainly everyone should take safety precautions to prevent crime. Don’t be out late at night by yourself, lock up your valuables, walk away from hostility and belligerence, but for the most part persons should feel comfortable in the city of Athens,” Pyle said. “Statistically speaking we’re not at as major of a risk as if we were in a large metropolitan area.”
as299810@ohiou.edu
