Changes enhance campus safety

Pitt’s Police and Facilities Management departments enacted new security measures around the… Pitt’s Police and Facilities Management departments enacted new security measures around the Chevron Science Center in light of robberies, vandalism and two assaults that occurred on the building’s stairs over the last six months.

Tim Delaney, Pitt’s police chief, said the police have attempted to prevent future crimes in the area around Chevron by using better environmental design, which regulates things such as visibility and surveillance.

Delaney said victims reported assaults they sustained near the stairway behind Chevron last December and then again in March.

He said the police had the assailants’ faces on tape from security cameras, and they canvassed local high schools looking for the suspected teenage attackers.

However, the lighting around the stairs created a glare, making their faces nearly indistinguishable to the plain clothes officers who conducted the investigation and the faculty of the local schools, Delaney said.

Pitt Police Security Manager Josh Cochran is certified in crime prevention through environmental design, and he said the old lights, comparable to common parking lot and street lights, caused a washed-out picture of the assailants’ faces.

Cochran said he proposed the lighting switch, replacing the yellow-toned lights with new, white ones, similar to the lights commonly found at gas stations.

In a further attempt to increase visibility, the University has removed two pine trees, Delaney said. They have also added more cameras to the Chevron stairway, and they plan to add more in that area and on the Chevron patio.

In addition, Delaney said Chevron would be the first in a series of campus-wide security upgrades, aimed to make the security systems easier for the police to monitor.

The new security systems, already in place in Pennsylvania Hall and the new Biomedical Science Tower, will integrate Pitt’s identification card database, surveillance cameras and fire alarms into one program, simplifying the number of things the police must monitor, Cochran said.

John Wilds, assistant vice chancellor for Pitt’s Department of Community and Government Relations, said the University also added more lighting on Parkman Avenue after many break-ins and the theft of cars and electronics.

They also installed a security fence at the top of University Drive because vandals had been throwing rocks at parked cars below from this vantage, Wilds said.

He said the Department of Community and Government Relations is working in connection with the local crime watch group that patrols this area in an attempt to reduce vandalism, theft and violence.

Wilds said he had heard good responses from students since these changes began last fall.