On Jan. 7, at 2:00 a.m. residents of the 200 block of South High Street heard screaming outside in the street. A guest at one of the residents who chose to remain anonymous, recalled what he remembered from that night.
“Being at an apartment on a busy street of West Chester, directly down the street from the bar on a Thursday night you expect to hear a lot of noise — so when I first heard screaming coming from outside I didn’t think much of it. That is, until I heard a female voice yell ‘someone call the police, he’s been stabbed!’ I looked out the window to see two men lying on the ground, one of which got up and ran away, the other lying face-down on the ground.” He recounts multiple police cars showing up to the scene, where the dispatched officers started taking care of the injured young man’s buttock until the ambulance arrived.
West Chester Police Department’s website, Chester County Crime Watch, reported “On 01/07/2023 at approximately 2:00 a.m., officers were dispatched to the 200 Block of S. High Street for a report of a stabbing. Upon arrival of officers, the 20-year-old male victim was located on the ground in the middle of the roadway. The victim was transported to Paoli Hospital with a stab wound to his left buttock. Currently, no arrests have been made.”
The site was last updated Jan. 24, with seemingly no updates to the case, I reached out to Detective Greg Cugino on March 2, however he was not able to release any information to me about the incident. If you want to stay up-to-date on this story you can access it here or if you would like quick access to the departmental website you can access it here.
West Chester University syllabi have sections about attendance and punctuality, academic and personal integrity, students with disabilities, excused absences policy, inclusive learning environment, electronic mailing policy, emergency preparedness and reporting incidents of sexual violence. Under the ‘emergency preparedness’ section, it is described that students can opt to receive official WCU emergency text messages via their free wcu alert service.
However, for how often there are imminent and dangerous crimes happening in the borough, the service is very rarely used. As far as I can recount, back to my freshman fall semester the service has been only used to state that a sexual assault has occurred, the university is under going maintenance and once there was an incident involving a man with a weapon on south campus. I can’t recall the university reporting any incidents happening off campus, having no concern for students safety in proximity to the university. While its students often experience, witness and are surrounded by real crime just blocks from campus, the institution chooses to ignore these situations despite having a fully developed way of reaching its public. When considering crime, arguably the most important thing is immediacy — meaning that the quicker word breaks of crime the safer everyone in the area will be.
Sydney Troxel is a fourth-year Media and Culture major with dual minors in Journalism and Digital Marketing. ST935596@wcupa.edu