(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
(Photograph Credit score: Sarah Grunau/ Houston Public Media)
Greater than 100 College of Houston college students gathered on Wednesday and demanded stronger security measures from the college after a string of robberies and a sexual assault had been reported on campus inside the previous week.
College students marched to the Ezekiel Cullen constructing on campus Wednesday afternoon, chanting and demanding the college’s board of regents put money into pupil security.
The calls for added security measures come simply hours after a person stated he was approached and robbed at gunpoint whereas standing at a bus cease on the campus Tuesday close to the Welcome Heart storage. That incident occurred days after the college introduced a plan to extend officer presence and reinforce safety measures.
Final week, the college reported {that a} pupil was sexually assaulted and two different college students had been robbed close to the Welcome Heart storage on campus.
The Harris County District Lawyer’s Workplace confirmed in an e-mail to Houston Public Media that fees of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated theft had been filed Wednesday towards a person accused of assaulting the scholar inside her automobile within the storage final week.
In accordance with the arrest affidavit, Eric Latroy Brown, 40, allegedly compelled the scholar inside her automobile and sexually assaulted her for quarter-hour whereas holding a knife to her throat. They recognized the person due to his tattoos. College police arrested the person hours after the incident Feb. 7 and launched him that day, and fees weren’t filed towards him till Wednesday, data present. Brown didn’t look like in custody when fees had been filed.
On Wednesday, the college introduced it has enhanced safety by growing patrols and increasing safety workers as college students elevated their requires security.
In an e-mail, the college stated it’s engaged on speedy options to enhance the visibility of its safety workforce by inserting improved lighting programs on police bicycles and carts. Extra safety officers are stationed in any respect six parking garages and 10 floor heaps, based on the college.
RELATED: Sexual assault, robberies on College of Houston campus immediate elevated safety measures
However Shay Russell, a college pupil stated that including police on campus is just a brief resolution, not a everlasting one.
“Extra police wouldn’t have prevented these violent incidents,” Russell stated throughout the protest. “What we want are proactive preventative options, not reactionary ones.”
By the tip of the protest, dozens of items of paper echoing security calls for had been plastered to the doorways of the Ezekiel Cullen constructing, the place the board of regents gathers.
The listing of calls for urges the college to ascertain a sexual well being process power composed of scholars and school to deal with points associated to sexual violence and prevention, and restore free self-defense lessons beforehand provided by the College of Houston.
Mina Vuong, a college senior who helped arrange the protest, stated that college students can’t depend on the college to maintain them secure.
“Regardless of receiving hundreds of thousands from our tuition and pupil charges, UH PD has failed time and time once more to guard college students on campus and we noticed that once more final night time after somebody was robbed at gunpoint,” Vuong stated on Wednesday. “How a lot does our value of residing should hold growing by earlier than we notice that we cannot depend on UHPD for safety?”
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