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Dr. McAdams blogged on an email the Marquette community received yesterday about new armed robberies from “early Friday morning”:

The Department of Public Safety apprehended five suspects within minutes of an armed robbery that occurred early Friday morning in the 2000 block of W. Wisconsin Avenue. The victim, a Marquette student, was approached by the suspects while walking alone and shown a weapon. The suspects took the victim’s personal possessions and fled on foot. The victim was not physically injured and immediately entered a nearby building to call Public Safety. Public Safety officers immediately responded and were able to catch the suspects. All five suspects are now in police custody. Milwaukee Police do not believe that this incident is related to any previous incident involving Marquette students.

I wonder when “early Friday morning” was. Good for the Department of Public Safety for responding quickly to the incident and seizing the suspects.

The incident and the email that includes a quick overview of Marquette’s security system reminds McAdams of previous efforts to counteract safety problems:

Back in the early 1990s, then Marquette President Albert DiUlio felt the need to deal with the perception that Marquette was a dangerous place, and did so by dumping millions of Marquette’s money into a program called “Campus Circle” — a redevelopment plan that made the area adjacent to Marquette more attractive at horrendous cost.

It seemed to “work,” or at least the bad publicity died down.

But in reality a campus near a dangerous area of a dangerous city is never going to be as safe as a campus in some bucolic rural area.

But the situation in Milwaukee is made worse by the rather lax attitude civic elites have toward law enforcement.

I’ll address this in a future post, but much of the problem with the response to these acts of violence is that Marquette, and to the limited extent to which the Milwaukee Police Department cares about student safety, engages in too much of what I call “symptom management,” something McAdams alludes to. There is too much effort spent trying to respond to the fact of the problem rather than trying to respond to the problem itself.

Relatedly, WISN, the best off-campus source for news about the kidnappings, has news (a video) about the beginning of the trial of Mark Nellum, one of the kidnappers, including testimony from two of the victims:

One of the men accused of kidnapping and robbing two Marquette University students will stand trial.

A judge made his decision after listening to testimony from the victims on Thursday.

They accused Mark Nellum of kidnapping them and then driving them around town and forcing them to withdraw money from automated teller machines.

Nellum faces eight charges including, armed robbery and false imprisonment.

Police are still looking to arrest a second person in the case. [Emphasis added]

Hopefully the police are somewhat close to finding the second kidnapping suspect.

By the way, we’re creating a new GOP3 category: “There is no crisis” in honor of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s inane comment about safety in the City of Milwaukee.

• Simon Harak's September 2003 Speech at Marquette -- And My Official Introduction to Jesuits - June 12th, 2008
• "How Al Gore is Getting Fat off of a Starving World" - June 1st, 2008
• Best column I've read so far on Scott McClellan - May 31st, 2008
• So in other words, you have no leads or suspects at this time? - May 30th, 2008
• RITA GAHAGAN - May 24th, 2008