Resources for Campus Safety

UW-Milwaukee student Leah Mailloux was walking four blocks from campus, when a stranger ran up behind her.

“I had my headphones in, walking along two blocks away from my house, and some guy runs up behind me, tries to grab my purse and my phone, he grabs a hold of my phone but didn’t get my purse though,” says Mailloux.

Mailloux was robbed on the corner of Maryland and Park, only four blocks away from campus. While campus police were called and arrived at the scene in a short amount of time, they weren’t able to do much in terms of getting back Mailloux’s stolen phone or even identifying the suspect.

After the incident, Mailloux no longer walks home, opting instead to take B.O.S.S. or Lyft. The bus is no longer an option for her since she was robbed during the short walk from the bus stop to her house.

Mailloux is not alone. Many students have some safety concerns in the campus area. The university campus does have safety resources

available to those students.

Both Lyft and Uber are transportation services that have free apps that can be downloaded onto a smart phone.

As fall gradually turns to winter, the amount of daylight gets shorter, and students who might have been able to walk home with some daylight left earlier in the semester could now consider taking a safer approach.

Students can be more alert to their surroundings as an easy start to a safer approach to getting home. Students that walk home often wear headphones to make the walk home bearable, but it could make them an easier target. Mailloux believes she was targeted because she not only had her headphones in, but because she is a “short, blonde girl.”

“People who are criminals are predatory, and so there is an element of predators who look for people or situations where there is a greater degree of vulnerability,” says Sue McCarthy, Interim Director at UWM’s Women’s Resource Center.

The Women’s Resource Center is located in the lower union and offers advice and guidance towards better self-awareness and self-defense.

Students might think they’re safe by just purchasing a self-defense aid such as pepper spray, but simply possessing these items might not be enough.

“In order for them to really be effective, there is a special training that someone ought to have,” says McCarthy.

Special training is offered through many departments at the university.

“It’s a skill, so self-defense and that level of self-confidence that is a part of it is really something that we nurture and grow over time, and that we need to keep exercising in order for it to be at its best,” says McCarthy.

Some of the Sports and Rec classes offer an opportunity to fully develop these skills. There are self-defense classes, as well as Martial Arts classes that run for half a semester during the Fall and Spring semesters. McCarthy notes that the number of students that attend these classes is surprisingly low.

Mailloux believes that taking a self-defense class could have drastically changed the way things played out the night that she was robbed.

“I would’ve defended myself better and he might not have gotten my stuff. I think everyone should take a self- defense class,” says Mailloux.