Photo by: Dayne Francis
Georgia State police have been dispatched to university parking decks nearly 40 times since Sept. 1. Roughly half of those calls addressed suspicious or criminal behavior. And the most immediate channel to university police glows blue in the corner of each campus parking deck.
The university currently houses 80 emergency call boxes, which are Panther blue shoebox-sized telephones which dial an immediate call to Georgia State’s police emergency line when the red alert button is triggered, according to GSUPD Sgt. Sharon Ware.
“Once that alert has been made, [the call box] automatically gives us the address of that call box location, which is relayed to the officer,” she said. “We always dispatch officers to those call box alerts.”
And although the call boxes — 30 of which are stationed in university parking decks — are inspected daily and scattered about campus, Ware said they’re not being used as much as police had hoped.
“We do not get a lot of call box calls,” she said. “About 80 percent of our calls come through the phone lines.”
Still, she said the emergency call box service boasts a 2 to 3 minute response time because dispatchers automatically send the nearest officer to call box alerts.
But one Georgia State student said she feels the university parking decks are far from safe. Georgia State senior Abigail Sparrow calls her home parking deck at the Lofts “pretty much a free-for-all,” which students exploit for mischievous [and sometimes nefarious] activity.
However, Sparrow claims she’s been left out to dry during a real emergency situation. And the police call boxes only muffled her cries for help, she said.
“There were people following me home from the library around 1 a.m.,” she said. “They were yelling at me, so I just stopped by the call box as we’ve been instructed to do. They told me they were unavailable and to call Atlanta police.”
She was able to flee to safety, but she hasn’t used a call box since.
Ware claims Sparrow’s story is “definitely not true.” But she said students are frequently told “scope out” the parking deck to avoid trouble, although she doesn’t think parking decks are problem areas.
“If anything looks or feels like it should raise suspicion, …don’t even get out of your car,” she said. “Call us and we’ll respond to that situation. We haven’t had any problems within the decks, but we always educate our community members to where the call boxes are located.”
But Tracey, a Georgia State parking services employee, said she couldn’t point out the call box locations in G Deck, where she works.
“I have luckily never had to use [a call box], but I do think they could be in greater numbers on campus,” she said.
Another parking attendant said he thinks crime in Atlanta has been on the rise since he began working for the university more than a decade ago. The man, who chose to be quoted anonymously to prevent identity theft said America’s crippled job market is driving young men to “do desperate things.” And he said some of those desperate people are acting out in the campus parking decks, citing G Deck’s two car thefts on Oct. 14 and 15.
“Ten years ago, crime wasn’t as rampant,” he said. “Every year that goes by, crime gets worse because the job situation gets worse. Young men don’t have jobs, so what do they do? They get desperate… They do desperate things.”
And he said G Deck’s security measures don’t help the situation.
“Walk through this parking deck,” he said. “There’s not a lot of cameras. It’s dark. No security.”
The man said he’s glad he takes MARTA to and from work as he wouldn’t trust his car or his belongings in a campus parking deck.
“[The parking decks] are not too friendly when it comes to parking your car and walking away,” he said. “I wouldn’t park in this lot. If I had an old jalopy, maybe. But I wouldn’t park near this lot, no.”
The Parking Services employee said the only surefire way to reduce crime rates and prevent future emergencies is to install more surveillance cameras and increase the police presence.
“[We need] more cops, no doubt,” he said. “The fewer cops you have, the more crime you have.”
Tracey concurred with the man’s call for better camera surveillance.
“I definitely think it’s an issue that we have few security cameras,” she said. “That makes it difficult to trust that your car is safe when you’ve already paid to park.”
But Ware said she doesn’t see a need to improve the policing of parking decks.
“We don’t have a problem,” she said. “I mean, we don’t have a major problem. When we see an issue that takes place on campus, we address it immediately so we can minimize that problem and diffuse it altogether…We do an excellent job protecting Georgia State.”
Plus, she said there’s plenty of undercover officers perusing the parking complexes.
“Just because they don’t see a uniformed officer, does not mean there isn’t an officer present,” she said.
And although Abigail agrees with the parking attendant that university parking decks can be scary and unsafe, she enjoys taking advantage of the no-holds-barred hangout venue under the cover the Loft’s parking deck.
“I don’t think they need any cops in there; no cameras either,” she said. “I kind of like the free-for-all, as long as I live at Greek [housing]. But it’s honestly not safe. I just exploit the unsafeness to hang out.”
