On Oct. 5, 2015, fear filled many students in the Philadelphia area because of a threat made online. The threat read, “On October fifth, at 1pm Central time, a fellow robot will take up arms at a university near Philadelphia.”
Cabrini College and other nearby universities took the threat very seriously, bringing Radnor police officers onto campus throughout the day and sending out information on what to do in case of an emergency. However, students still had their fears.
Though Oct. 5 came and went without incident, discussions have risen based on this and other recent threats and shootings on college campuses. Would the campus be safer if public safety were armed to protect students and fight back?
Research done by the U.S. Department of Justice compared the sizes of schools that have armed officers and found that as the school size decreases, so does the likelihood of armed officers on the campus.
Along with this, public schools are about twice as likely to have armed officers as private schools. It was found that 94 percent of public schools with over 15,000 students have sworn-in and armed officers, compared to only 22 percent in private schools with 2,500-4,999 students.
Cabrini has a population of about 2,150 students, making it even less likely for similar schools in type and size to have armed officers.
“Since Cabrini is such a small school to begin with, I don’t think our public safety officers need to be armed,” freshman Julianne Molinari said. “I feel really safe on campus and Radnor Township and the neighboring towns are also really safe areas.”
While it seems as though for the most part it is not necessary to arm public safety officers, it is something with schools not too far off from Cabrini.
Villanova University recently announced that beginning in the fall of 2016, they will be training and arming about 20 percent of their 75-member public safety department. These selected officers will go through legitimate police training and be sworn in in order to protect the university.
A message sent from the university’s president, Fr. Peter Donohue, stated that this was a decision that had been contemplated over the last two years.
“While our location on the Main Line is considered relatively safe, Villanova is highly visible, and we have not been without incident the past few years,” Donohue said in his email. “These factors, coupled with three train stations on campus and our close proximity to a major highway, set Villanova apart from our local peers and require a higher level of campus security.”
It is due to some similar circumstances, as well as the challenges public safety officers can face in certain situations as they are not officially officers, that some believe Cabrini College should take similar action in the near future.
“Although it is a bit alarming the idea of having the public safety armed with live weapons, I believe they should be armed with sidearms,” freshman accounting major Anthony Harrison said. “In reality, with the rising danger and the advances in tactics along with weaponry it all makes sense.”
Molinari, though she overall believes public safety should not be armed, also can see where it may be a viable option. She feels there are both pros and cons to bringing weapons onto campus willingly.
“Having our public safety officers armed can be a positive thing when there are incidents like the threat of Philadelphia-area colleges or the armed robber who was running from police in December,” Molinari said. “It can also be a negative thing due to several officers shooting civilians.”
Molinari, like some others, believes that the addition of weapons to campus may bring about situations in which innocent students or other bystanders get hurt in which weapons were not necessary in the first place.
A public safety officer stated that, with his main goal being to protect the students on campus, it could be beneficial for some sort of weapon to be available in order to fight back against a shooter in a situation where Radnor Police could not arrive at the scene as quickly as necessary.
“There’s pros and cons,” he said. “We’re a relatively safe campus. We’re small. Do I think we need police on campus? No, but it would be nice to have the option [to fight back]. I wouldn’t arm everyone working on campus, but maybe a select few with proper training and background.”
