Buckson said it’s his feeling that campus crime has dropped from what it was in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
“Though it goes in waves, I still think our campus is so much safer,” he said. “And our crime, particularly person-on-person crime … I don’t see as much of that as I did back then.”
Buckson said the most important thing students can do to protect themselves on campus is to pay attention to what’s going on around them.
“By the time you have to get into a physical altercation, your first line of defense has already failed, which is your awareness of your surroundings,” he said.
Buckson went on to say some students say they don’t lock their front door in their hometown, to which he responds, “Maybe you don’t, but that doesn’t mean that’s the smartest thing to do.”
“Crime can happen anywhere, you know,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t have to find it; it finds you. It seeks you out.”
Buckson said the Student Eyes and Ears for University Safety (SEEUS) program is used, but not often enough, and he regularly witnesses students walking alone at night.
“If it’s late at night and you’re walking from point A to point B, use our SEEUS program,” he said. “That’s what they’re there for; they’re there to escort you.”
“I recall responding, this was years ago, to a situation of,” Buckson is cut off mid-story at 6:14 p.m. while leaving the old DPS headquarters by a dispatch call over the police radio.
“Thirty-two I’m going to need you to reroute, tag 14, a medical at Jones Pool,” the dispatcher said.
The responding officer said, “Copy. Thirty-two come back.”
“Copy, and I have a female swimmer going in and out of consciousness at this point on the pool deck,” the dispatcher said.
“Ten-four,” the officer responded.
“Station 407 will be on route also, from Oakwood and West Circle,” Buckson said over the radio.
“We don’t normally take the sidewalks, but in emergencies we do,” Buckson said after mounting the curb with his vehicle and steering down the walkway toward the Recreation and Intramural Sports Department Building (Rec/IM).
Buckson quickly made his way on foot to the Olympic-sized Jones Pool in the Rec/IM building, where the EMU Eagles women’s swimming and diving team were hosting the Miami University RedHawks for a swim meet.
The Miami University student, whose name will be withheld out of respect for her medical privacy, lay on the ground with a team trainer attending her.
Buckson covered the student with a jacket and talked with her, to gather information and assess her condition.
Periodically swimmers approached and offered words of comfort to their teammate. Within minutes Huron Valley Ambulance services arrived on the scene and took the student to St. Joseph Hospital in Ann Arbor.
The Eagles lost to the RedHawks 167-132.
Afterward, Sgt. Buckson gave me over to officer John Phillips and car 432.
