Scary World

With the recent tragedy on the Yale Campus, it makes you evaluate your surroundings, your life and what is precious to you.

I work on a college campus in a little town in Western Massachusetts. We are surrounded by a 5-College network where students from the surrounding schools come to our campus for classes, events and what ever else they can become involved with. You never really know who the visitors or even some of the students intentions are while being on campus. But, you take every day as any other day, normal and safe, and leave at the end of the day to go see your loved ones.

But, when tragedy's happen on college campuses, it makes me reevaluate my job security. I work in Public Safety on campus, but that doesn't protect me anymore then a student, maintenance person or professor on campus. We are all vulnerable to a persons wrath, no matter where you are....college campus, working in an office building in a large city, or sorting mail in a suburban post office. Its just a scary world now-a-days no matter where you are located.

Working in the college police department, I see all the new technologies since the Virginia Tech tragedy with the new mass notification of safety issues on campus. Also, we already have a secure swipe card system in effect on campus that replaced keying into buildings so people can be tracked down in the event of an emergency, but things can still go horribly wrong and that is what is scary, no matter what measure are in effect.

I just have to keep in mind that tragedy's don't happen every day on campus and my safety is top priority, no matter who I am.

I do hope the murderer of that poor young lady at Yale is found and prosecuted to the fullest since she, and anyone who is innocent is caught up in random or planned acts of violence, did not deserve what happened to her.