An incident involving DPS and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) over a student in possession of a fake firearm in USC Village housing last month, as well as reports of an unhoused man harassing students on Greek Row, warranted no broadcasted alerts from DPS.
“It’s a judgment call, and sometimes we can make mistakes,” DPS Assistant Chief David Carlisle said.
On the night of September 18, DPS and LAPD entered the second-floor courtyard of McMorrow, a university housing building in the USC Village, after surveillance footage showed a student holding what was later found to be a replica handgun.
Students living in McMorrow and other buildings in the Village, as well as the general student population, were not given any live updates or alerts by DPS as the event unfolded.
“I have some friends who also live in McMorrow who were scared, so they called DPS,” said Adrien Van Doren, a sophomore business major living in McMorrow. “They called DPS asking what’s going on, and they did not provide any info, and instead, they actually made the students more scared of what’s going on.”
In the days that followed, rumors circulated about the incident, with many students still believing that a real gun was confiscated while others had no idea anything happened at all. No information was given to residents by USC Housing or the RAs of McMorrow.
Van Doren said that despite there not being a real threat to safety, DPS should have sent out an alert after the incident to clear the air and provide context on the police presence.
“Our officers were able to respond very quickly, as did LAPD,” Carlisle said. “And officers, in their experience, develop intuition, and based on their experience, they initially suspected it was not a shooter.”
Carlisle reasoned that had DPS sent out an alert saying there was an active shooter, it might have caused “more disruption, panic, and potential disruption to campus activities that would not have been warranted.”
As for the incidents reported on Greek Row, Carlisle said that crime alerts are typically used to alert people that a crime had occurred and urging people to take precaution, which he said wasn’t the case there.
“The particular unhoused person that you’re referring to has a mental disability, and we have transported him [on] more than one occasion to a mental health facility, but he does not remain, and it’s often voluntary,” he said.
DPS also did not send out a notice to students about the fatal stabbing that happened earlier this week on Washington Boulevard and Oak Street, though Carlisle said DPS was not involved with that incident, which happened outside of the university’s patrol zone. LAPD handled this incident.
“If we were informed, we’d have to determine if there was an outstanding suspect that posed a threat to the campus community,” said Carlisle.
Out of three students who spoke with Annenberg Media about these incidents, only one had heard about the McMorrow incident while two were familiar with the reports on Greek Row and none had heard of the fatal stabbing.
“I think they should be broadcasted, because if those people are still out there, people should be notified that they’re still out there and they should keep an eye out for it,” said Sunwoo Eom, a junior design major.
Madison Price, a senior computer science major, said she feels like DPS “picks and chooses” what it wants to alert students about.
“I feel like they report such minor incidents, as well,” she said. “So then it’s hard to read all the emails that they’re sending out.”
Matthew Hrmich, a sophomore economics and mathematics major, said he found about the McMorrow and Greek Row incidents through Sidechat. This social media platform allows college students to share information and pictures anonymously to the rest of the student community.
“I feel like that concerns the safety of students since these are events near campus, on campus, involving USC students,” he said.