SU community responds to two sexual assaults within half an hour

On Monday morning, Syracuse students woke up to a chilling email reporting the sexual assaults of two females late Sunday night right off campus.

Both females were forcibly touched in their private areas, and had to fight off their aggressor, according to the email from the Department of Public Safety (DPS).

This is simply unacceptable. We cannot sit by and tolerate these actions.

Although DPS considers Euclid Avenue and  South Crouse Avenue “off campus,” they are so close I can see Crouse Avenue from my window. Euclid is just a short walk away from campus, and is lined with homes and apartments of many university students.

The email sent many students, both male and female, into a state of uproar. Students were enraged, angry, upset and frustrated.

Why was our safety suddenly at such a huge risk?

One student, junior Megan Minier, took to social media to express her thoughts and heartbreak regarding the two incidents.

She posted a screenshot of the letter she sent to SU Chancellor Kent Syverud, which outlined her outrage and fear as a student, and began with the words “I write this to you in my bed in tears.”

Her post has more than 280 likes and 275 shares on Facebook.

In it she called for the disparity in security measures between “on-campus” and “off-campus” to be closed.

Many people, both students and non-students, have commented with messages of support for Megan and her message about safety at Syracuse.

Megan’s note: In the 3rd to last line of the 2nd paragraph, it should read “while her roommates were asleep.”

“This was your traditional sexual assault; there’s no way around it, it was a concrete incident. The fact that it happened off campus and it being treated as so off campus is where the issue lies,” Megan said.

As to what made her decide to post her message on Facebook, she told The Tab, “I was confident that something would come from administration by just emailing it, and I did receive an almost immediate response from the Chief of Public Safety, which I really commend.

“At the same time, I was nervous if that was the only manner I took that in, even if my concerns were addressed, other students’ wouldn’t have been.”

Although she had no idea her post would receive so much attention, she says, “If I didn’t post it on my Facebook, I would not have received the response I did.”

An Information and Technology major, Megan Minier knows the importance of social media and how effective it is in getting important messages like this one out there.

Megan received responses from friends, classmates, loved ones and even alums. Some individuals reached out to Megan to share their own personal experiences with sexual assault, and how they feel safer after she expressed her concern and raised the profile of the issue.

On Wednesday afternoon, Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety sent out a mass email to the entire school  addressed from Chief Bobby Maldonado. The email was sent to reassure students that the their safety remains DPS’s number one priority, and that officers are fully equipped to handle these incidents, both on and off-campus.

“We need to figure out a way to combat it happening, even though it wasn’t directly on campus,” Megan told The Tab, and indeed is she correct.