Yale Daily News

When I came to New Haven in an effort to visit a small trolley museum at East Haven, I caught quite a few complaints from my parents because they reckoned New Haven to be unsafe. I therefore planned on going to the Yale campus in case anything should go wrong, believing that to be the safest part of town. After this Annie Le story erupted, I'm not sure if it's safe or unsafe, but I never had a problem while in the area.

We know nothing about the killer at this point, since we are only receiving bits and pieces of information. However, it has been suggested that this was a person who worked in the Amistad building. Therefore, this is an issue of internal security and what can be done (with additional humans, cameras, phones and other safety measures) to ensure the safety of those within the Medical Campus and the campus at large from threats within the confines of campus buildings.

However, New Haven is not a safe city, despite it being the home of Yale (some would say in part because of Yale and its relationship to the city). The medical school is in a particularly dangerous area. In my own time on campus, I have had friends assaulted, shot at, held at gunpoint in their homes and back yards, and chased and/or robbed multiple times. A man even tried to follow us into our home when we lived in a very safe part of town. I have called security for suspicious activity that turned out to be pre-teens with weapons, stalking the stairs of the building I worked in, right in the center of campus. The campus has tried to step up security over time, with street phones and security escorts, and hopefully with some additional monitoring of the streets (though that has not been in evidence). Granted it is difficult to keep up with what New Haven and some from Hartford who roam New Haven on the weekends can dish out. Weapons are rampant among teenagers and pre-teens, as illegal guns can be had for the price of tennis shoes. There was a gun collection initiative in New Haven recently, in which high-school students were encouraged with incentives to turn in their guns, because it had become such a serious problem.

On the other hand, I know for a fact Yale can do better. Yale was visibly more safe, and the streets unusually free of crime when in the fall of 2003 their own staff went on strike. Out of fear of retaliation by their own employees, Yale heightened security all over campus, and in every building. Many is the time since those weeks in 2003 when I wished that Yale cared as much about the safety of its students as it did about the security of its physical properties. They have slowly been buying up the whole city, and yet they act as though they are an entity apart from-and that functions despite the problems of-the City of New Haven. This is a serious problem they must address for the safety of their students faculty and staff which number in the tens of thousands.

I think the administration should beef up security by placing porters at the entrances to the colleges, which is how it used to be. I have observed many undergrads keep a gate open for a clearly questionable person to follow. It is too much to expect them to do otherwise. I am sure I did it myself against my better judgment.

The basements on Science Hill are possibly even less secure than at the medical school. We don't necessarily have animal research facilities but we still have expensive equipment, chemicals, specimens and biological agents sitting around. Staff here have been requesting better access control, cell phone reception and better procedures for identifying "legitimate" tradesmen/utilities people for years. With all the construction going on at the moment, tradespeople walk in and out like they own the place, some times without even knocking or identifying themselves before they even walk in to a room! A blue phone style system in all basements would give many people peace of mind.

It is not accurate to say this crime could have appeared anywhere. Many campuses have greater security in place, cell phone access on every square inch of campus, and run background checks on all employees, and also have policies which require students to work in pairs, etc., so a student does not end up alone in an isolated area of campus, without cell phone use, without supervision. Shame on Yale University. Big hat, no cattle. And a reputation that died a decade ago.

Great site...keep up the good work.

I see President Levin is still muttering about the "darkness of the human soul" rather than looking at the lack of procedures to address complaints about employees who exhibited a "bullying" and "angry" attitude towards research students. He still has not addressed the core question of how Clarks' entire under-educated family happened to be working in the same lab. Surely, it encouraged a violent and insecure young man to develop a proprietary and territorial stance and his behavior would be indulged and protected by his family. I am not sure whether all this talk of "work place violence" to going. It certainly is prejudicing the case and Levin should work behind the scene if he thinks there are needs to increase security at this particular moment. Finally, for the nth time, Annie's death if not any old "work place violence." It is a cruel, barbaric slaying of a wonderful young women of huge promise and who weighed ninety pounds and stood at four feet eleven inches. Her personal tragedy should not be slapped with a cold "admistrative label" of "work place violence." It is offensive, disrespectful and prejudicial to the case. I feel that Levin is more concerned about Yale's image than the victim. Other contributors have enlightened me about the actual need for beef-up security on Yale campus and that more could be done. I welcome all that but please Levin, don't hijack Annie's tragedy, leave that to her family.