Question For Person Who Was Robbed

<p>On the "Mugging?" thread there was someone named Astro who said that he/she had been the student who was mugged at Yale. So that the students (and parents!) reading these messages know, would you tell us which streets around Yale students should stay away from at night?</p>

<p>Use common sense. I've lived in New Haven almost 19 years and I haven't had any incidents. If a neighborhood looks shady, then go back towards Yale.</p>

<p>A lot of these things can be avoided with a little common sense. Don't walk down an empty city street alone in the dark. duh. :)</p>

<p>i'm sorry, but whenever people ask these questions I think of sheltered people who aren't aware of the going-ons in the outside world. Geez. I mean there are just obvious no-no's</p>

<p>ProudParent</p>

<p>You may not be aware that if you click on the highlighted user's name you can send a private message to "Astroexplorer" the grad student with whom I think you were trying to get in touch. If you hear back from him I'd be interested in the response as well. I was a bit disturbed to read that "stray one block one way or another, and it goes downhill fast." He may not have responded to you because he may no longer be reading these threads. Good luck</p>

<p>I don't have to worry about getting robbed... New Haven is NOTHING compared to ATL :-P. But, obviously, if a street has houses that resemble houses from "Dangerous Minds" or another movie like it, don't go that way. ;) Also, have a razor/knife/stungun/firearm/billy club/pepper spray/mace/chinese throwing stars/etc. along with a cell phone and camera (or camera-phone) with you to beat down the criminal's ass, take a picture of the assailant, and call the police.</p>

<p>Just a few weeks into the new school year and this is now the fourth assault on a student around the Yale campus. Let's hope this is not a trend. This was a junior woman who was not injured but certainly must have been frightened.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=29910%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=29910&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Published Tuesday, September 20, 2005</p>

<p>Student threatened with gun in robbery</p>

<p>BY ALEXANDRA ADLER
Staff Reporter</p>

<p>"A Yale College junior was held at gunpoint on Edgewood Avenue Sunday night -- the latest in a series of crimes this year that have led University Police to send patrols off campus and into the Dwight neighborhood.</p>

<p>The student was grabbed by a man who demanded her money and cell phone at approximately 9:30 p.m. as she was walking east on Edgewood toward Park Street, Yale Police Department Lt. Michael Patten said.</p>

<p>"The man pulled her into an alley," he said. "He took out a silver gun and pointed it."</p>

<p>When I was at Yale in late August, there was a shooting in that same area in the very early a.m. I asked my D about the "Dwight neighbohood", not knowing anything about it. A couple of her friends are living off-campus this year and I was concerned.
She said that the neighborhood was very sketchy and nowhere near where her friends were living. She said there would be no reason to be walking there that she could see unless you lived there. I had a car and intentionally drove to the area during the day, and felt pretty confident that D would never have a reason to be there, day or night. I think this is the latest of several crimes that seem to be rising in the Dwight area. Obviously the New Haven police can't give the area enough protection, so I'm glad that the University Police are sending some patrols in.</p>

<p>We live in Los Angeles where USC, and even UCLA have streets that are not safe for a young person alone at night, so I've come to terms with D living in a city that can quickly turn from student friendly to unsafe within a few blocks. This is her third year, and she's had no problems (knock on wood), but she's good about not going too far off campus late at night, and never doing so alone.
I still feel that Yale is safer than the area around USC because it's clearer where the boudaries are. I reminded D that every assault I've read about happens to a young person alone... and how important it is to travel in groups at night, even on streets next to campus. Hopefully, she'll use her head.
Thankfully, this young woman was not hurt.</p>

<p>Thanks to all of you for your guidance. I don't want to sound too much like a worrier but all these robbings and attacks have me concerned. I'm going to try to get more information from the university about all of this.</p>

<p>just dont go into ethnic ghettos unless you are part of that ethnic group... pretty simple.</p>

<p>There has been a much worse rash of muggings/attacks at UPenn this year. At Harvard, a student was mugged twice within 20 minutes.</p>

<p>The truth is, there are much scarier things to worry about -- like getting in a car and driving. That's why living in an inner city, even a very dangerous one like Detroit, South Boston, Washington DC or New Orleans, is statistically safer than any suburban area (unless you're a gang/drug dealer of course).</p>

<p>"That's why living in an inner city, even a very dangerous one like Detroit, South Boston, Washington DC or New Orleans, is statistically safer than any suburban area (unless you're a gang/drug dealer of course)."</p>

<p>personal crime index, where 100 = national average (lower is better): </p>

<p>princeton: 6 </p>

<p>new haven: 309(!) </p>

<p>source: money magazine, 2005 best places to live ranking.</p>

<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/snapshots/40706.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/snapshots/40706.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/snapshots/40451.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/snapshots/40451.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The "personal crime index" does not consider the death rate from auto accidents, which is much higher in suburban areas. It also does not consider that much of the violent crime in cities occurs because of economic competition, i.e., drug dealing. That's why suburbs are statistically less safe than inner cities, even dangerous ones like Philadelphia, Trenton, Camden or Detroit.</p>

<p>Furthermore, Money Magazine's study is flawed because it does not take into account how or where municipal boundaries, which are used as reporting areas, are drawn. It's also obvious from looking at the numbers on that website that in the process of trying to collect info on hundreds of towns, there were some serious errors in the data collection (for example, compare the number of bars listed on the site with the number of bars listed in a telephone book - its off by orders of magnitude).</p>

<p>Furthermore, your figures have absolutely no relevance to campus safety. According to the 2002 USDOE statistics on campus safety, in terms of crimes per student, Princeton is actually the third safest Ivy League campus, after Dartmouth and Yale.</p>

<p>you're grasping at straws, as usual. "The 'personal crime index' does not consider the death rate from auto accidents, which is much higher in suburban areas"? maybe because auto accidents aren't personal crimes. and the fact that much of the crime in cities is drug-related does not make those cities safer to non-drug dealers. often, innocent people are the victims of property crimes like robberies to support druggies' habits. you can quibble all you want about the geographic boundaries money magazine used. maybe new haven has only 40 times the rate of crime as princeton, instead of 50. but maybe it actually has 60 times the rate. the huge difference persists. as for campus safety, every other day brings a new story in the YDN about crime to students. according to yesterday's, the yale police had to call a public meeting to outline the steps it's taking to address a recent increase in crime. meanwhile, crime remains stable at a low rate, according to princeton public safety's recent report. tellingly, the article summarizing the report focuses not on personal or property crimes but liquor law violations.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=30080%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=30080&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/09/30/news/13267.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/09/30/news/13267.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Unfortunately, Princeton is a suburban wasteland with nothing to do. And the suburbs are doomed to be the ghettos of the future. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, dozens of million-dollar loft apartments and condos are currently being constructed throughout New Haven and other revitalized cities like it.</p>

<p>The point I was making about safety was that suburbs are more dangerous than almost any inner-city area, because you are more likely to be involved in a fatal car crash. This has been confirmed by numerous scientific studies. </p>

<p>Also, I feel safer walking down a vibrant street in a city like NYC, New Haven, or Boston at night (with restaurants open until midnight or later, or even 24 hours) than I do walking through a quiet, deserted village like Princeton. Just look at the attempted rape at Princeton last week, the recent sexual assaults at suburban campuses like Cornell, Rutgers, Duke and Syracuse, etc.</p>

<p>This. is. so. stupid.
If you're smart, you will not be jumped, mugged, murdered, or hit by a deviant car at either school. If you're smart.</p>

<p>its a tradeoff in with any city. If you are afraid of living in a city, where crime is always higher than a suburb, then go to princeton. Otherwise, cities offer far more amenities and "things to do" culturally and socially for students than the bucolic yet boring town of princeton. Then again, if you are so naive to be afraid of living in a city, then I don't see how you got into princeton in the first place...</p>

<p>Geez, people! There's crime in every city. Does that mean we should all lock ourselves up in some farm in the middle of nowhere and live there for all time?
Where I live, it's so "safe" that my neighbor is currently driving a bulletproof jeep. So what, I should pack my luggage and run away screaming in panic?</p>

<p>I love the suburbs! Probably because I live in Atlanta, also known as "The never ending sprawl", "The New Los Angeles", "California of the East". But, I'm not afraid of a city... for crying out loud, I live on the fringe of one of the most ghetto urbanized areas in the country.</p>

<p>Yale's in a diverse urban environment. Princeton is in a preppy suburb. Of course there's going to be more crime in a city than in a wealthy suburb. But if you use common sense like countless others have posted, then there's not much to worry about.</p>