Sheriffs slow on reporting campus crime

On campus crimes have failed to be recorded.

Opinion by Asher Miles, Staff Writer

Sheriff SUVs wait outside of the Sheriff’s Department at Valley College. (Photo by Joseph Acuña | The Valley Star)

The campus sheriff’s department’s failure to update the campus crime blotter, an ongoing report of campus crime, jeopardizes the safety of the Valley College community and begs the question, “Why isn’t crime being documented on campus?”

From January to August 2022, 25 five crimes took place on the Valley campus. Since last September, zero incidents have allegedly happened on campus. Pressure from individual students led to the Sheriff’s Department updating the campus crime blotter; particularly crimes that have been omitted from the 192 day late update. For example, in the newly refreshed blotter, the recent back-to-back taggings at the parking structure have been all but forgotten about.

A recent breaking and entering of the Theatre Arts building have brought to light the existence of the percolating issue of crime on campus. The doors to the Media Building were effortlessly pried open, without proper surveillance of the culprit.

“We are completely unaware,” said second semester music major Miya Williams. “By the sheriff department not updating the crime blotter, it’s not making me feel safe on campus. For the most part, I do feel safe on campus, but after hearing this, it makes me ask myself “what are they doing?”

A non critical eye would propose that the increase of sheriff patrolling, coinciding with the arrest of Arnold Orozco, a vandal that terrorized Valley for five years, is the reason for the decline of on-campus crime. If the goal of recording on-campus crime is to make Valley appear as the safest campus in the LACCD, as Deputy Sheriff Coleman once suggested, then zero reported crimes will win them first place. However, the Sheriff Department not recording crimes is similar to a stock being pumped. It’s full of air, until the truth bursts the bubble.

As stated in The Clery Act, all colleges and universities that receive federal financial aid must keep and disclose information about crime on and near their respective campuses. The Clery Act also states that alerts must be made of imminent dangers on campus, and that an Annual Security Report must be distributed to current and prospective students and employees, or face fines.

Within the newly updated crime blotter sheet an incident of burglary in the Theater Building, grand theft and an exhibition of a handgun have been documented. The juveniles who tagged the parking structure were eventually arrested after loitering around the area they vandalized.

The sheriff’s department got an easy catch due the vandal’s adolescent ignorance, rather than round-the-clock patrolling.

“We can’t confirm if they are with a local gang," said Deputy Butler. "When I asked, they said no. Even though they are spray painting gang-affiliated stuff, they may not want to disclose that information.”