Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 22, 1990 TAG: 9003222711
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The men eventually were arrested and convicted, and one received the longest sentence in Montgomery County history - 145 years plus life.
After that, Virginia Tech police began devising programs to prevent such attacks on campus.
But not until James McComas became president two years ago did the police get the support - financial and otherwise - they needed for their programs.
Since then, Tech's Campus Watch and escort program has taken off.
"It's three or four miles from one end of campus to the other," Tech police Sgt. Jack Ridinger said. This is too far for a woman to walk alone, he said, "especially at night."
Tech's Campus Watch, which started as Dorm Watch in September 1988, is a group of students and employees who wander nightly through buildings and dormitories and around sidewalks, streets and parking lots on Tech's 600-acre main campus.
There are seven people who walk the campus each night and two others who drive a university car to escort students. Most of them are full-time employees; some are students who work part time, and a couple are students who volunteer a few hours a week.
Armed only with two-way radios, the seven-member walking crew reports to headquarters any suspicious person or anything odd. One of the bigger parts of their $5.27-an-hour job is escorting students, primarily women, around campus.
Tech Police Chief Mike Jones said the number of attacks has decreased since Campus Watch began. Also helping are new lights in remote areas of campus, Jones said, some of which were funded by the McComas administration with its "spend now rather than pay later" attitude.
For Johanna Bond, an 18-year-old freshman from Richmond, a call for an escort is a once or twice nightly routine.
"It's just safer," said Bond, standing in a light drizzle beside her car after being dropped off by an escort. She was on her way home from her boyfriend's dorm.
On the other hand, there is Carmen Alvarez, 29, who is living near campus while doing research on a grant from the health and psychology departments. "I walk any time I feel like it, and a lot of times it's late at night," Alvarez said.
On a recent Friday night, she walked along a dimly lit road near Tech's duck pond listening to Boy George on a Walkman on her way to the racquetball courts. "I'm never nervous because I enjoy walking," said Alvarez, who also jogs at night. "It's too enjoyable to be nervous."
The previous day, as Ridinger drove his patrol car past the Duck Pond, he recalled that a student was raped there late one night a few years ago. He said female students must take precautions.
Some women prefer to fend for themselves.
In Blacksburg, karate expert and teacher Ed Hampton said a third of the people in his classes are female students and professors from Tech. Not many of them say they come to his classes because they are afraid of rape, he said, but some have used maneuvers learned in his class to prevent an attack.
"Or, for some, their boyfriend's got drunk and they had to put him in a wrist lock," Hampton said.
But whether women choose to go it alone or use the escort service, Ridinger said female students should accept the fact that there are dangers on Tech's campus.
"Blacksburg has changed a lot in the past few years," said Ridinger, a Blacksburg native.
by CNB