Special Report: Dark Streets

Right now, the number of reported rapes in Columbia is the highest it has ever been. You may remember ABC 17 News started looking into the problem in the East Campus neighborhood in 2014, when a suspect committed suicide after allegedly attacking women in the area.

Many college women and men living on East Campus say the neighborhood is too dark. The current lighting structure was put in around the 1940s and has not been updated since.

ABC 17 News is revisiting the issue to see if progress has been made.

“The taxi driver stopped to get me and a man came and started trying to attack me,” says East Campus resident and student Abby Jensen about a night she says happened on East Campus.

“I was scared for sure. I couldn’t sleep that night. I’ve definitely had a lot of sleepless nights on East Campus,” said Jensen.

Jensen is not the only resident that feels this way.

Her friend Sarah Sprick does too, enough to do something about it. You’ll remember, ABC 17 News met with Sprick last year after someone reportedly tried to break into her house.

“Our front door, the window was just smashed in. I have sorority sisters down the street, their house has been broken into multiple times,” said Sprick.

“The difference between attacks on East Campus and other places is a direct correlation with the lighting,” said Jensen.

With the goal of slowing the crime, Sprick started a petition asking the city of Columbia for more lighting in the East Campus neighborhood. Right now it has almost 1,300 signatures.

“She’s literally requesting that lighting in the whole neighborhood be increased, from a Water and Light standpoint, that’s very unique to us,” said Ryan Williams, the assistant director of Water & Light.

Not every East Campus resident is in favor of brightening up the neighborhood. ABC 17 News talked to one resident who said he is satisfied with the lighting levels.
ABC 17 also spoke with a rental property owner who said his residents haven’t complained, but says he’d be willing to hear the concerns in the name of safety.

This doesn’t exactly help the cause for more lighting.

“When someone from an existing neighborhood wants a street light added, they need to check in with their neighbors, get some buy in,” said Connie Kacprowicz from Water and Light.

Water and Light is reaching out to different kinds of residents in East Campus like students, homeowners, property owners and those in the homeowners’ association.
These groups will come together for an interested parties meeting.

“I’m not really sure we are going to get some type of consensus on what type of project would even need to be done,” said Williams.

If the groups can agree on some sort of project, Water and Light will bring it to council and ask for appropriations for this or next year’s fiscal budget.

“It could involve doing a project through the entire area and could be expensive,” said Williams. “I really can’t give a guesstimate on the price until we know exactly what would need to be done,” he continued to say.

“I always feel really safe wherever I am through out Columbia. That might be perception versus reality type of thing,” said Williams.

How does crime stack up in the area? In the last 6 months, 5% of the city’s 911 calls for burglaries came from East Campus along with 6% of robberies and more than 3% of assaults.

City crime stats say violent crime is up this year. There were 82 reported rapes in 2015. Five years ago, there were were 32 reported rapes.

“Not only is it a dark neighborhood, we don’t see many police around here,” said Sprick.

What police department is supposed to respond to east campus calls?

ABC 17 spoke with Major Brian Weimer from MUPD who says, “Just because someone is an MU student, does not mean we respond to that area. Not to say we would not help someone out or drive through, but for routine patrol we are not in the East Campus Area.”

ABC 17 also reached out to Columbia police on a regular basis for 3 weeks in hopes of speaking with an officer who patrols the area. ABC 17 was told no one would be available to speak on the topic. ABC 17 sent the department a list of questions, but the only thing a spokesperson would tell ABC 17 is that 6 patrol officers and a sergeant are scheduled to look over the area.

Jensen and Sprick say Columbia police spoke with them at their sorority houses about East Campus.

“They gave us a bunch of tips on how to be safe, how to drink responsibly. Basically because they are understaffed and don’t have enough police to patrol all these areas,” said Sprick.

“They seem to be like ‘This is how it doesn’t happen to you. You’ll be safe if you do this,’ but there is no guarantee there,” said Jensen.

Jensen says if the city can’t add more lights right now, then she wants more police out.

“The only guarantee is that they will be on the lookout making sure to not be reactive, but to be preventative,” said Jensen.

Water and Light along with other city organizations investigated a complaint about the lighting levels on east campus in 2014. They found it to be lit to an adequate level. That same year, ABC 17 tested the lighting levels and found it was darker than some other Columbia neighborhoods.