A safety alert was issued Monday by campus police after they discovered a student was robbed at gunpoint near campus. This alert was the third one issued in 2007, and the second one this semester.
Bruce Harber, director of campus police, said "We put out an alert because it involved a student and was close to campus."
In addition to e-mail alerts, campus police posted copies around campus and officers monitor the area.
The University is required to "provide timely reporting to the campus community" of crimes that may be a threat to students and employees so that more crimes will be prevented by The Campus Security and Right to Know Act, or "The Clery Act" as it is commonly known.
The law is named after Jeanne Clery, a 19-year-old Lehigh University student who was murdered in 1986 in her dorm room by a fellow student. Connie and Howard Clery, Jeanne's parents, discovered there were 38 violent crimes on the Lehigh Campus in the three years before Jeanne's death. This compelled them to fight for campus crime to be reported, culminating with the 1990 passage of "The Clery Act."
In compliance with the law, The University of Memphis' policy says alerts will be created at the first or repeated incidents of reportable crimes - aggravated assault, burglary, manslaughter, murder, robbery, sex offenses, hate crimes and car theft. These alerts will contain information describing the suspect and the location of the crime and the victim. The alerts should "provide enough detail to provide the information necessary to avoid becoming a victim of future events."
Since 2002, The U of M has issued 11 safety alerts, according to public archives. Last year, three alerts were issued. Two were issued in 2002 and only one was issued each year between 2003 and 2005.
Harber said that the suspect in the Friday incident is still out there and poses a threat.
Officers have been ordered to look out for the suspect, who is described in the report as being between 27 and 32 years old, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, and between 185 and 200 pounds.
