The head of a national organization that monitors crime on college campuses said Thursday the SMU Police Department’s failure last April to tell students a female student had been raped at a nearby apartment complex was “pathetic.”
In a letter to SMU Police Chief Michael Snellgrove, S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president of Security on Campus, Inc., said, “This incident was reported to you, so this isn’t a situation where the campus police were ignorant of something being handled by another agency. It was in a heavily student-populated area, and may have involved one of your students being targeted on campus and followed to their apartment. Your attitude that there is simply nothing you can do about this type of report is simply pathetic.”
Snellgrove declined to comment.
In a story published Thursday, The Daily Campus reported that campus police failed to inform students that an SMU student was raped in an apartment complex near SMU in April. In the story, Snellgrove defended the decision. He said his department is responsible for providing security inside the campus boundaries.
The story quoted another Security on Campus official as saying the federal Clery Act requires campus police to inform students about sexual assaults. However, in a separate letter, Carter said this statement is “quoted out of context” and is not correct.
Nevertheless, in his letter to Snellgrove, Carter said SMU police should have promptly notified other students that a sexual assault had been reported.
“While apparently not strictly a violation of the federal Jeanne Clery Act, the failure of the SMU Police Department to fully log a rape reported by a student at her off campus apartment on April 17 is extremely disappointing as is your failure to issue a timely warning,” Carter told Snellgrove.
Carter said many other schools have realized they should issue warnings whenever violent crimes occur involving students.
Security on Campus is a non-profit organization that monitors campus police compliance with federal reporting requirements.
