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Crime activity low on campus
Traffic, safety are main concerns
By Allison Bailey
abaile19@mscd.edu

The Auraria campus is located in what one might imagine would be a high crime area, with Colfax to the south and downtown to the east.

Surprisingly though, the Auraria campus has very little crime.

Auraria Police Chief Heather Coogan attributes this to the presence of the Auraria Police.

“Serious crime? No,” she said. “And we’re really proud of that and we really think it’s a result of our efforts.”

According to Coogan, most of the crimes that are committed on campus are nonviolent thefts committed by nonstudents.

Coogan said few violent crimes occur on campus, most of which are committed by students as the results of arguments. However, there have been four aggravated assaults and four simple assaults at the Auraria campus in 2006.

“Which is extremely low, when you consider that there are 37,000 students and 3,000 employees on this campus,” she said.

One of those assault charges was an attempted sexual assault in January. According to Coogan, it was the first of its kind in 10 years.

Although there is a low instance of crime on campus, Coogan said traffic is a huge issue.

As traffic continues to increase with enrollment numbers, accidents become more and more common. And in addition to student traffic, the campus is bordered by some of Denver’s busiest streets.

“I worry more about the traffic issue than I do about someone losing a purse,” Coogan said.
Students are often listening to MP3 players or talking on cell phones as they walk across the streets around campus and don’t always notice the traffic, Coogan said.

The Auraria Campus Police Department is a completely separate entity from the Denver Police Department, and the Auraria Police have their own holding cells, located in both the administration building and the Tivoli. People arrested on campus are kept there until they are transferred to a Denver jail.

Students and faculty concerned about crime at Auraria are invited to attend Safe Campus Night on Oct. 19, when Auraria Police walk the campus in the evening to do an assessment of safety issues, such as ensuring that an area is well lit and has enough emergency phones.

Following last year’s Safe Campus Night, the Auraria Higher Education Center board of directors approved more than $1 million for safety improvements.

Already, emergency phones are located in every building and in the parking lots. The phones connect to the Auraria PD automatically and any phone on campus used to dial 911 also connects directly to campus police, although people must dial the direct number, 303-556-5000, from cell phones.

“I believe students have a right to be able to come to school and have a reasonable learning environment,” Coogan said. “And that’s what our job is, to make it a safe environment for students to come to class.”