do you feel in danger?

invincibleirish

The ULSU would like to issue a warning to all students to be extra cautious when walking around campus at night, following a series of attacks on female students over the past 10 days.

On Wednesday the 13th of April, a female student was walking home around 10pm on the pathway near the Salesian Hostel when a man attempted to grab her and drag her into the bushes, however the student struggled and managed to escape. On the same night, 20 minutes later, the same attacker exposed himself to two female students that were on the pathway from the White House to the PESS Building and unsuccessfully attempted to grab one of them as well.

On April the 20th, at around 10:30pm, a female student was grabbed on the pathway from the back of the Schuman Building to College Court (where another student was attacked earlier this year) but struggled and escaped. The Gardai have identified the attacker from the incidences on the 13th of April and a very positive ID has been obtained from the attack on the 20th of April. The Gardai are investigating whether they are the same person in the two instances.

The Students' Union would like to urge all students, especially female students, to use caution when walking around the campus after dark. Always walk with a friend, use lit pathways and cycle or use the Nitelink if possible. Personal alarms are available in the Students' Union shop at cost price and we would encourage all students to purchase these as a precautionary measure. Please call into the Students' Union if you have any concerns and one of the sabbatical officers would be happy to speak with you. If you have any information about the incidences please call the Henry St. Garda Station (061-212400).

i must say when i came to UL i had no experience of crime and although i was involved in an incident off campus earlier in the year i still didnt really give two figs however i must say it seems these past few weeks everyone has been a lot more on edge, especially as people have late night project work etc as well as the shenanigans of a few weeks ago, the uni. seems to have responded by putting the old security guards on campus on bikes and increasing visual presence, but i have to say UL is slowly but surely losing the status i assumed it had as a haven from the rest of Limerick city. worryingly talking to a couple of peeps from my old stomping ground who are doing the L.C. this year who were saying that the attacks have not gone unnoticed by students and particularly parents in that particular school so when it comes to change their of mind time on the CAO UL might be negativley affected, a shame i say but who can blame them?

sceptre

These aren't the first attacks on campus and they won't be the last. Obviously as a series of attacks specifically targetting female students it's rather serious and the warnings are welcome but it's not all that new. A few years ago students were advised not to go down to the river after a series of attacks there, back in 96 or 97 there was a serious incident in Kilmurry where a house was broken into and a student couple forced to perform sexual acts at knifepoint. Add to that the usual occasional break-ins and a few assaults in the estates and there's always been something recent. Stuff happens, bad stuff and people should be made aware of that (the college authorities have always been notoriously poor in doing this and I'd say they're more concerned about their marketing office then their security office).

Now let's look at where these new incidents took place - all in locations where the lighting is dreadful after dark. The path from Plassey House to the PESS building is dark as bedamned, between the primary school and the Salesian hostel isn't much better and I assume the lights are still pretty bad on that path on the left of the Schuman building on the way to College Court.

These obviously aren't the only places on campus with bad lighting - walk from the library to the Foundation building car park and that light on top of the building may choose not to work, it's dark enough on the same path on the way to CSIS and the long path to the main entrance wouldn't fill anyone with confidence. And there's a dark section on the way to the east gate just past the arena, the Foundation car park itself can be pretty dark if you're walking to Dromroe and these are just the obvious ones I can think of. At least they managed to do something about the path opposite the Stables a few years ago (they got rid of it) as it took a short trip through the trees before coming back to the road.

The primary problem is that no-one's all that interested in doing anything about it. A few people have been elected to the SU over the years promising to address the lighting issue but for the few who actually meant it (manifesto writing is a cottage industry every Easter), they come up against the might of the Buildings department who don't appear to be all that pushed at all. I'm aware of a few students (some with disabilities) who raised the issue of the lighting walking from the library to the foundation car park (the steps aren't great and for these students it was a particular issue) who were just given the runaround from Buildings. If they're not prepared to complete the half-arsed job they made there, they're unlikely to actually embark on any new projects that might actually improve safety and security for campus users.

In the old days it was a little easier. The campus wasn't quite as spread out as it is now (ten years ago the Schuman was pretty remote (if anyone remembers the old path that ran across where the creche is now they'd figure that no-one sane would walk on it at night but people did)) and there were more wide open spaces that could be lit with fewer lights. The path to the main entrance has always been a problem, though at ltast there's some lighting there now, as opposed to the old days when there was none.

The secondary issue is the security and security staff. There haven't been enough of them and they're spread pretty thin. There are night porters (cut down in the last few years I believe) but they're not security. There's also the problem that the security van is effectively acting as area security rather than just campus security as they tend to take trips to the estates as well (or at least they used to). Add to that the fact that Castletroy doesn't have a garda station of any kind (the campus garda tends to be a good sort but last I heard it was a one day a week visit) and the security is pretty thinly spread. They're not going to put much more (is any) money into actual people for security - campaigning for it is nice and dandy but anyone should realise that they're too tight to bother.

The tertiary issue is that like it or not, UL is effectively in the middle of a reasonably sized town now with the pitfalls that come with that - not big enough to have city facilities but too big that pathetic faciilities won't do (see the garda station above). With that in mind it isn't safe to walk about the place, badly lit as it is, alone. UL's never been a haven from Limerick city, students only thought it was because many of them tended not to go into the city all that much. Keeping in mind that there are quite a few things that university authorities could do to make the place safer, until they rise off whatever they're sitting on and actually do those things, taking reasonable precautions is the best recommendation that anyone can issue.

Slightly aside, I'm living in the midle of the city and have been for a few years. I'm pretty sure that the warning the cops issued for no-one (not "females", "no-one") to walk down my city centre street alone after 10pm is still in force. I completely ignore this but I suppose I shouldn't really. I do have the copon to realise that when my girlfriend travels down from Galway and doesn't get to park directly outside my door after dark that I go out and see her in. Reasonable precautions will see anyone home safely most of the time so they're worth taking. Obviously we get lax until a series of events like this happens.

Peteee

Good post

My 2 cents, I've always thought UL was reasonably OK, but then i've only walked home from the pub/club once or twice by my self, the rest of the time i've been with a group.

Also i'm a guy so...... ehhh this 2 cents isnt worth much at all is it!

Hoochiemama

a few weeks back i was walking through the car park by dromroe with my friend. we were heading to a house party. she kinda flinched and i asked her what was wrong. i turned around to see some guy who had just stuck his hand up her skirt standing there ****. this was at half 11 at night!! and this part of the car park was lit up!! i had a bottle of wine in my hand and i said if he came near us id break it off his face. luckily he didnt and we legged i to campus security.

but after we had reported it to them and the garda i went straight to the house party. i had just finished my FYP and im not going to let some sicko ruin my college experience for me. i had waited all year to go out this night and i went out and i had a great time and that sick **** didnt ruin it for me.

but i find now that im nervous on my own. i have to be walked to the door by a male friend everynight. i unluckily found myself walking home alone one night and i was so nervous i had to go up to a girl i didnt even know and ask her could i walk with her.

the sooner this guy is caught the better

redalert2

I don't think it's just Limerick though. Everywhere has gotten a lot more violent. If you avoid walking on your own at night in dodgy areas, you should be okay. I think drink is to blame for a lot of the violence.

Sergeant Horse

Actually these are the first attacks I've heard of since 1st year (3 years ago) so its probably just a random event. The problem with Limerick is that it is the primal focus of the Media in order to take the focus of Dublin crime. So whenever something happens, its is talked about forever. Lets be honest here, Limerick is nowhere near as bad as Dublin, and one attack won't change many people's minds. I always found the College and actually the City Centre as well to be very safe (even at 4am, which is a frequent happenstance), however, it is always wise to be guarded

invincibleirish

The problem with Limerick is that it is the primal focus of the Media in order to take the focus of Dublin crime. So whenever something happens, its is talked about forever. Lets be honest here, Limerick is nowhere near as bad as Dublin, and one attack won't change many people's minds. I always found the College and actually the City Centre as well to be very safe (even at 4am, which is a frequent happenstance), however, it is always wise to be guarded

i'd disagree completely, limerick is the most dangerous city in the country in relation to its size,as for the city centre i think i could produce plenty of limerick people who would disagree with you on that also

cooperguy

That guy was caught last week, he broke into a house in college court. The girls in the house called the gaurds and left the house when they heard noises. The guy was found in the house wearing a balaclaca (sp?) and holding a knife.

Lucky he didnt break into my house I would have gone to see what the noise was before ringing the gaurds!!

Dave

Invincibleirish, where are your facts to back up this statement? I tend to agree with Sergeant Horse, I've been in UL for the last 3 years and been around Limerick my whole life, and nothing untoward has ever happened to me, or any of my friends.

BossArky

Hi,

I spent 5 happy years at UL for a degree & masters(sept 98 to sept 03). Towards the end of the time there I remember there were times in the scholars when announcements were made that people should be careful walking home as some travellers were on the walkway to the maingate with a shotgun(!). This happened a few times, never heard if they were caught of not.

Other stories I heard from college court, especially during summer time when real Limerick knackers (not just travellers) were hanging around and intimidating students... as there weren't too many students there over the summer ...and many of the Limerick students who lived at home would move out of their family home and into college court with their scummy friends for a summer of debauchery.

On the whole I would say that most of the voilence and crime was caused by students themselves after too much alcohol.

Hoochiemama

cooperguy wrote:

That guy was caught last week, he broke into a house in college court. The girls in the house called the gaurds and left the house when they heard noises. The guy was found in the house wearing a balaclaca (sp?) and holding a knife.

Lucky he didnt break into my house I would have gone to see what the noise was before ringing the gaurds!!

yeah, i heard that too. and i heard he was a fourth year business student. imagine finding out that someone you were living with was an attempted rapist.

invincibleirish

Dave wrote:

Invincibleirish, where are your facts to back up this statement? I tend to agree with Sergeant Horse, I've been in UL for the last 3 years and been around Limerick my whole life, and nothing untoward has ever happened to me, or any of my friends.

i remember sometime in the last year reading in the various newspapers that limerick has the highest crime rate per capita of all the cities, i mean im not trying to pull peoples legs or anything, i could go and look it up but i assumed people know these things already, and i stand by my claim especially that as many limerick people at least in my company agree with me

Cork Boy

Limerick has always been dodge, but then again teh whole country is.
No matter where you are girls (and most fella's under 6ft 8) ye shouldn't walk alone at nite.
ye should know by know the govt (of the country and college) doesnt care about our safety

semisleeping

holy ****balls, was it really a 4th year bbs? I probably know the frickin guy. I could definitely hazard a few guesses..

Cork Boy

what difference will him being caught make? its not like he'll be punished!
maybe a barring order and suspended sentence....all after he gets his degree of course.

cooperguy

He's already on bail its a f*ckin joke

Cork Boy

who is he?

Nukem

Cork Boy wrote:

who is he?

Anyone names him is banned.

Innocent til proven guilty!

Nukem

Cork Boy

my apologies, let me rephrase....
according to the press, who is alleged to have attacked those women in UL?

invincibleirish

everything ive heard is different, somesay he is a business student, some say he is an engineering student, some say he wasnt a student but just a scumbag,some say it was the guy living with them, and everyone *knows* someone who was in the house or attacked, i'd like to say it was an oompa lumpa that did it coz the girls hairdresser who was attacked sometimes cuts the grass for my cousins mother in law told me it was.

Cork Boy

you can be a student and a scumbag....specially the Tipp ones!

Sergeant Horse

invincibleirish wrote:

i remember sometime in the last year reading in the various newspapers that limerick has the highest crime rate per capita of all the cities, i mean im not trying to pull peoples legs or anything, i could go and look it up but i assumed people know these things already, and i stand by my claim especially that as many limerick people at least in my company agree with me

bah per capita is basically another of saying well there is crime there and less people so we'll blame them all. the reason for that is bgecause Dublin is huge and less crimes are reported there. Limerick is a focus of the media so ALL that happens is shown, not only half like in Dublin.
Actually on another note, my girlfriend was telling me that somebody got kidnapped outside her apartment in Dublin there last week, scary stuff

Zapho

My advice to anyone is
girls: never walk anywhere alone at night, always bring a guy.
Guys: never let a girl walk alone.

I've got no problem giving up my time to look after a girl I know. Wouldn't I feel like a million bucks if something happened to a girl just because I was too lazy to walk with her?

invincibleirish

Sergeant Horse wrote:

bah per capita is basically another of saying well there is crime there and less people so we'll blame them all. the reason for that is bgecause Dublin is huge and less crimes are reported there. Limerick is a focus of the media so ALL that happens is shown, not only half like in Dublin.
Actually on another note, my girlfriend was telling me that somebody got kidnapped outside her apartment in Dublin there last week, scary stuff

no it isnt, per capita means higher % of crime then similar populaces, case in point, limerick has (and i apoligise im trying to find stats on the web) higher crime rates then galway or waterford which are similat in size

Elley

Zapho wrote:

My advice to anyone is
girls: never walk anywhere alone at night, always bring a guy.
Guys: never let a girl walk alone.

I've got no problem giving up my time to look after a girl I know. Wouldn't I feel like a million bucks if something happened to a girl just because I was too lazy to walk with her?

The lads need to be careful though too. A guy walking home from the library got hopped not so long ago!

Sergeant Horse

What? Waterford is way smaller than Limerick

invincibleirish

Sergeant Horse wrote:

What? Waterford is way smaller than Limerick

galway has 10,000 more, waterford has 10,000 less. limerick has higher murder/crime rate then both (probably combined)

Amazotheamazing

Invincible, Limerick's hinterland is far more populated than Galway's, whereas Galway's city boundary is much bigger than Limerick's. For example UL isn't incuded in Limerick city, neither is Castletroy or Raheen. Added to this is the fact that some of Limerick's suburbs are actually in Clare so they aren't included either. Were you to take the real population of the Limerick region and then divide by the number of crimes you'd get a far more accurate picture.

That is not to say Limerick doesn't have a crime problem (it does) but look at Galway (where i've lived for 5 years) for example. In the past 10 weeks there has been at least 2 stabbings, a man beaten so badly that he had to be transferred to Beaumont hospital, 2 women attacked in a taxi office (they were hospitalised), there was an attempted sexual assault on a female student outside the college library at 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon (actually Galway has the highest number of sexual assaults per capita but that's a separate debate). And that's just from the top of my head.

My point is that Irish cities in general aren't the safest places, it is a by-produce of ill-thought out urban planning. Yes Limerick has a problem, so does Dublin and Galway, why I'd bet even Cork has one or two criminals.

sceptre

invincibleirish wrote:

no it isnt, per capita means higher % of crime then similar populaces

Erm, no - per capita is a measure used to give the average of any statistic per person in order to make it easier to compare events in dissimilar population sizes. Usually used for calculating income (a countries GDP expressed per capita basically tells us how rich each person in a country is, though obviously there's a PPP calculation to be made afterwards). If it was used merely to compare something between similar populaces we wouldn't have to use per capita at all (per capita means for each head (literally translated) or per person), we'd just say that city A and city B are the same size and more people get murdered in city A. Hence, saying that X has higher crime than Y per capita means that X is effectively producing more crime per person and that's what makes it a better indicator of a problem for comparison than merely quoting a figure. Though there's the problem with calculating population size as Amazotheamazing mentioned. Either way, plenty of scumbags as well as disorganised, slightly organised and organised criminals in all of our cities.

mysterious

i remember reading stats on of the newparers about two years ago

and it said from what, i remeber that juding be per capita and in every 100 per capita also.
which is to make the facts realistc regardless of the poulation of the cities

limerick had actually lower crime rates overall than Cork or Dublin.
this rant is ridculous
limerick is more of a focus , media attention , due to a few incidents that happened (that happen in every city in Ireland) and the media made a holy show about it

whenever im in limerick i feel a lot safer than i do in Dublin without a doubt!!!
limerick is very short of garda ,
for examlple there are only teo garda station in the whole metroplian area of limerick including suburbs , which is a total disgrace!
Castletroy has a population of nearly 20,000 and doesnt have a single station, not to mention limerick largest surburb raheen?????

Dave

I've recently moved up to Dublin, and I have to say I feel alot safer in Limerick than I do in Dublin. Maybe it's a case of "Better the scumbags you know" but I've witnessed more crime up here than down in Limerick.

invincibleirish

mysterious wrote:

limerick is more of a focus , media attention , due to a few incidents that happened (that happen in every city in Ireland) and the media made a holy show about it

god this is all i ever hear, limerick mentality appears to be no different to places like granard, thinking the media is out to get it, i mean c'mon get with the times,point taken though on limericks size, but waterford has a similar argument, as does Cork.

zachler

Do you know its nearly been 12 months since we've had a murder in Limerick?

Fingers crossed...

invincibleirish

mysterious wrote:

i Castletroy has a population of nearly 20,000 and doesnt have a single station, not to mention limerick largest surburb raheen?????

out of interest whats the pop. of castletroy in the summer? i assume that it must drop substantially, but yes i agree that a police station for the suburb would be desirable. that or they follow thru on my suggestion of fencing off UL from limerick and extinguishing all those pesky public walkways.

Dave

And that would help how?

Mr. CooL ICE

Stop the masses of scumbags from walking around?

Dave

I never see "masses" of scumbags walking around. And I'm sure scumbags despite their lack of intelligence know how to get around a fence.

zachler

To be honest, I always thought that those calling for a Castletroy Garda station sounded like middle-class whingers.

There's a Garda Station on the Island that's unmanned and right next to a high-profile crime spot. Putting resources into it might actually stop someone being killed.

Castletroy doesn't have any crime problem worth speaking of in comparison.
Its just not a priority when there are real problem areas elsewhere in the city where people are in real and constant danger of physical attack.

I do think some of the out-of-town students might be more naive and less streetwise then Limerick-based students though. I remember one first year who was robbed just outside Colbert Station after he arrived in Limerick for Orientation Week.

homerjay2005

the only palce i ever found to be dangerous was the entrance to briarfield/or accross the road to elm park,where there was always a gethering of young "scum"...it was always pretty suspicious how lights were always broken as soon as they were put up in that laneway, 7 of my friends got "annoyed/hit/attacked/insulted" there over a short period last year, we had our windows smashed in and the house was slightly broken into, but apart from that, it was grand to live there and i was there for 4 years...local scumbags, all about 15 or 16 with noting better to do