- The Washington Times - Tuesday, July 25, 2023

More guards, cameras and lighting were part of the public safety strategy Catholic University shared Tuesday following a bloody month both in and around its campus in the District’s Northeast quadrant.

The bucolic school grounds are typically an oasis from the crime that flares up in the neighborhoods on its perimeter.

But after a three-week stretch where a Kentucky teacher was shot and killed on campus during an attempted robbery, a recent graduate was jumped by a group of people next to the Brookland-Catholic University Metro Station and a shooting claimed a man’s life near the Metro as well, university officials rallied to address concerns over the encroaching violence.

“The cause of our problem are perpetrators who are coming from other neighborhoods in the D.C. area, and they’re coming here to rob, and to steal and to kill,” University President Peter Kilpatrick told The Washington Times during the university’s public safety walk.

D.C. police data shows that crime is trending in the wrong direction around Catholic University.

So far this year, the area surrounding the campus has seen an increase in every violent crime — from robberies and sexual assaults to assaults with dangerous weapons.

Most alarming are the three homicides recorded around Catholic University in 2023. There were none at this point last year, according to D.C. police data.

The July 5 shooting death of Kentucky teacher Maxwell Emerson outside Father O’Connell Hall was so rare that Mr. Kilpatrick couldn’t recall the last time someone was slain while inside the university’s borders.  

The safety walk was focused on the minor changes that university officials said go a long way in improving the sense of security that’s been rattled over the past month.

That includes hiring additional guards for the university’s 35-man force and bringing more patrols to the campus’ perimeter. 

Along with that the school is installing more cameras and cutting down shrubbery that may provide cover for criminals looking to mug victims.

Commanders Carlos Heraud and Sylvan Altieri from the Metropolitan Police Department also shared that D.C. police are positioning light towers in dark areas along the campus boundary.

Certain stretches of Taylor Street NE on Catholic University’s northern border as well as on the sidewalks surrounding the Red Line station now have the light towers to remove those shadowy recesses that assailants — namely robbers — make use of.

“A lot of robberies are crimes of opportunity,” Cmdr. Altieri told The Times. “So when people talk about cutting back trees and all that stuff, to some people it sounds [little], but these are ways to take those tools out of the toolbox for criminals.”

Some of the changes are already paying off.

Mr. Kilpatrick said that the university has increased the number of cameras on campus by 700% since 2021.

It was one of those security cameras that captured Emerson’s last moments alive while he was interacting with murder suspect Jaime Macedo.

The 22-year-old ex-con was seen standing over the victim around the time Emerson sent his mother a message that said “Help. Being robbed at gunpoint.” Emerson tackled Macedo to the ground shortly after sending that message, which is when court documents said the suspect shot and killed the Kentucky teacher.

Those same university cameras helped track the assailant fleeing off campus. Macedo was arrested less than a week later in Northeast.

“That was a surprise, especially the day after the Fourth of July,” incoming senior Joe Accardi, a member of the university’s Student Government Association, told The Times. “To think that we could come home and see that was sad.”

Despite how jarring the crime was, Mr. Accardi said it hasn’t affected students’ perceptions about safety on campus. He said they trust in the school’s leadership, and added that Kirk McLean, the university’s head of public safety, has met with students to go over how security protocols are being updated in light of the violence.

But Mr. Kilpatrick believes that fighting crime is about more than manpower and technology. He wants to build more connections with law enforcement and in the broader community, with the hope that treating each other less as strangers and more as neighbors will produce better outcomes.

“Part of the atomization of society is we’re not coordinated in our response to crime,” Mr. Kilpatrick said. “If we form an interconnected network in our society, that’ll be a good starting point for tamping down crime.”

Correction: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly reported Catholic University’s security camera system grew by 700% over the last year. That growth has happened over two years. 

• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.

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