Old coach - some stuff has not been widely reported - like this incident...
just a week ago FOUR armed thugs robbed the McDonald's that's just a half block off campus...
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/investigation-continues-for-mcdonalds-armed-robbery/
and that's far from the first time gun violence has occurred there -
Maybe their being a pain to the students was what kept the scumbags away. Mr. Baer was a great guy and a great head of security for a long time on the hilltop. He was another Bradley employee who mysteriously retiredI have lived in troubled areas before with much larger and denser populations then Peoria. Peoria for whatever reason has this us against them type of feel to it. I have to believe the students become a mark because they go to BU and it qualifies as a bonus to the muggers. I'm not sure how you can minimize this part of the social fabric unless there is an economic revival in the area. I hate to see the campus become a police state but what options do you have that will not impede on your civil liberties. Perhaps BU needs to create a fence around the campus along with high technology security to keep the students safe. I'd even have to believe that the students could develop a system that monitors the campus along with some type of social media where they can respond to concerns and inform BU police of any unusual activity which could be then used by the rest of the student body.
While I was at BU the BU police were more of a pain to the students at large but with all this violence I'd welcome their deployment along with the Peoria police within the community with open arms.
Mr. Baer was ... head of security for a long time.. He ... mysteriously retired
Crime has only gotten worse since then. It can never be the "Ivy League" school of the midwest that President Glasser wants it to be with the crime creeping around and on the campus, and no amount of paint is going to cover up the shabby houses and businesses in the surrounding area.
In reality it could fit right in. University of PA and Yale are not in an environment I 'd call a sanctuary.
Again, Glasser and gang aren't as ruthless as some make them out to be -- http://campaign.bradley.edu/updates/baer.shtml
I don't think this a problem exclusive to BU. There are quite a few universities built in urban environments which were started 100+ years ago when those neighborhoods were thriving. Now many of them are the only things worth going to in those neighborhoods. SLU suffers from the same problem. They have taken the approach of buying up every piece of property they can in order to buffer them from the bad areas and make the actual campus into a pedestrian mall with ornamental lighting and such.
A lot of this would be totally different if it were a Mr. Glasser instead of Mrs. (Dr.) Glasser.
ooops - better do something quick - here's another report
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1978603444/Bradley-University-student-reports-robbery-Thursday
Another carbon copy episode of crime at the exact same address next to the Bradley campus-
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x459325883/Bradley-student-robbed-of-bookbag-assaulted