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Vol. 88, No. 29 Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Crime on the rise? 17 timely notifications sent in 2011, students question if weekend crime indicates trend
‘My blood went cold’
By Georgina Buckley The Breeze
This weekend,both a stabbing and a shooting occurred, continuing what some see as a pattern of violent crime. The first was in an off-campus residential complex. Early Saturday morning the Harrisonburg police responded to a shooting at 2:40 a.m. on the 1100 block of Devon Lane. A 21-year-old male was shot in the leg and taken to Rockingham Memorial Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to the timely notification email. On Sunday at 1:30 a.m., officers responded to an incident at Firetop Bar and Grill, where a 22-year-old male had been stabbed and taken to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he’s in serious but stable condition, according to police. This is the first timely notification this year, but in 2011 there were similar incidents, including three shootings and three armed robberies. Though HPD spokeswoman MaryHope Vass couldn’t comment on whether crime has increased, there were 17 timely notification emails sent out to students in 2011, compared to nine notifications sent out in 2010. Some members of the JMU community said they think crime has increased. Evan Grover wrote on The Breeze’s Facebook page, “The crime on and around Port Republic has certainly increased. It certainly isn’t due to lack of policing. Property Managers MUST do more to remove problems from the area. It has nothing to do with JMU.” Allen McCown wrote on the Facebook page that crime has definitely increased around the Port Republic area and that the property managers and police officers have done nothing to try and stop it. But some students have more varied opinions on the recent spurt of crime. Senior Audrey Lindner, a marketing major living in The Commons, said that she thinks the amount of timely notices being sent out have increased since her freshman year, but she still feels safe. She said she had heard of the Devon Lane shooting over the past weekend, but wasn’t overly concerned because she felt the people involved in the violent crimes weren’t students caught in the crossfire, but people who were looking for trouble. “I feel like some of the timely notices may be situational,” Lindner said. “They were in a bad situation, and it wasn’t random.” Junior Song Eun Kim has never personally experienced any violence living in Hunters Ridge apartments, but said she does get scared when she receives the timely notices.
Cory d’orazio / the breeze
>> More interior photos of Montpelier Hall at breezejmu.org.
Students, professors share Montpelier Hall with RMH’s remnants By Alison Parker The Breeze
Signs that read “anesthesia work area,” “X-ray room,” “nuclear medicine,” “ultra sound” and “radiologist film reading” linger on the chemically stained wallpaper in the old Rockingham Memorial Hospital building. What was once home to patients undergoing surgery, receiving treatment or resting in peace in the morgue is now where senior studio art major Emily Brooks takes her poster design and senior portfolio classes. “You can’t help but look around and think that you’re in an old operating room where sick people have been and may have passed away,” Brooks said. Duke Hall’s renovation will take about two years to complete, according to university spokesman Don Egle, which resulted in relocating JMU’s department of communications and marketing, the studio art and
TOP Some rooms still remain vacant in Montpelier Hall, formerly RMH. LEFT A computer lab is set up in an old operating room. Vinyl goes halfway up the walls from when surgeons needed to hose down the floors after surgery. RIGHT Old hospital signs still line the hallways and classroom walls.
art history department and other general education classes to the East Wing of the old hospital, now known as Montpelier Hall. Dr. Eugene Harper, a surgeon in the old hospital from 1974 to 2001, never expected his home to become a set of classrooms and offices. “It’s kind of strange,” Harper said. “The operating rooms were sort of an exclusive club. No one is allowed through the main door unless you put on your operating clothes,
photos by paul jones / the breeze
plastic boots and masks — now anyone can walk in.” Harper visited students in classes early last week, sharing stories of the thousands of operations performed in the very rooms they were sitting. “One of the worst things to see was a patient who had a motorcycle accident, and his foot was turned around backwards,” he said. see Hospital, page A4
samantha mcdonald / the breeze
Politics of Dr. King
Keynote speaker of JMU’s 25th Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration looks to future, not past By Jeff Wade The Breeze
see Crime, page A6
paul jones / the breeze
Calvin Mackie, the keynote speaker for Center for Multicultural Student Services’ Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, was featured in Spike Lee’s Hurricane Katrina documentary “If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise.”
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he would charge everyone with identity theft. “For boiling him down to one phrase: ‘I Have A Dream,’ ” said Calvin Mackie, keynote speaker for JMU’s 25th annual celebration of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. “No one wants to be what Martin Luther King was — an agitator,” Mackie said to a diverse crowd that echoed the most remembered of King’s speeches. “His legacy is secured. It’s yours we need to worry about.” An animated speaker that paced a 5K over the course of his speech, Mackie enunciated his rapidfire dialogue with both a booming voice and
immense physicality. Mackie said recognition of accomplishments was not what King sought. “Martin Luther King would have left that monumental celebration,” Mackie said, referring to the completion of the recent Washington memorial, “and marched to Wall Street and participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement.” Mackie didn’t shy away from the political, touching on issues of class and social division.
>> Read the full story at breezejmu.org. contact Jeff Wade at breezearts@gmail.com.
1/17 Inside
>> Corgans’ Publick House brings Ireland to Harrisonburg, page A7 samantha mcdonald / the breeze
Jordan cmeyla / the breeze
A3
news Post-9/11 problems
A5
opinion Siri’s speech rights
A7
life Happy feet
A9
sports Stuck in a slump
Muslim students face common misconceptions of their faith.
First Amendment extends to Apple’s personal assistant.
A dancing performance shows a different fun side of tap.
CAA leader George Mason leaves Dukes with longest losing streak since 2008.