With Saturday's TUPD report of an attack on a female student on College Avenue joining a string of three other similar attacks in the campus area, it wouldn't be surprising if Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus is taking a collective look over its shoulder. Here's what the campus had to say about the attacks and their safety implications.
I'm definitely more conscious than I was before. I live on Boston Avenue, and I know that I am constantly aware and very on edge if I'm walking home after 9:00 or 10:00 at night. I don't really feel a danger of being targeted, but better safe than sorry.
— Danielle Jenkins, junior
I live on Boston Avenue, right across from Helen's, and one of my friends who lives in the Arts Haus had a tweet that had a link to the Medford Journal and they said that there was shooting in a house on Boston Avenue like a block down from where I live. I was reading this and kind of freaking out, because … I live right next to this place. But I don't know, this is selfish, but I'm a male, so I usually don't have to worry about walking alone home from places. Someone getting shot makes it much more real. It's not just that stretch from Davis to Tufts you have to worry about. I don't necessarily feel less safe, but it just opens up the possibility for things that I did not think were possible before.
— Seth Hurwitz, junior
I don't know why, but I don't feel less safe. I feel more alarmed and it kind of is sad and hurtful that people are sexually assaulted. I think that in college that is really important to have that sense of security and I think it just takes it away.
— Max Ezekiel, freshman
I'm not worried at all. It doesn't change my view of anything. S--t happens. I feel this doesn't represent a giant crime wave coming our way — it's just a dude or a few dudes. It'll stop.
— Alexander Most, sophomore
I've seen a couple announcements about it … but I don't feel less safe at all, to be honest. Sometimes I do [take it into consideration], especially in those places which are badly lit sometimes like College Avenue and the start of campus. I never see people around, so maybe it's a bit scarier to walk around there after dark.
— Pedro Jardim, sophomore
I don't really feel any less safe than I did before. I already thought that it was kind of a bad idea to be walking out alone at night.
— Amelia Rapisarda, junior
I might be naive, but personally I don't feel very unsafe walking around this campus at night. Maybe because I'm tall, I might look a little foreboding. I feel very safe on this campus, maybe because I've been in far more unsafe situations, and I could very easily be attacked, but I'm silly and I think that I'll be fine. If they were unarmed I would probably just attack them and scream and run away, but if they had a gun or something it would be much more difficult.
— Rachael Kadish, sophomore
I live by Porter, so I kind of have the bigger range of where the assaults are happening — I kind of just want to not be out so late, or not commute so late. I have a cab number in my phone and I have the cops' number in my phone, so I guess if I were at Tufts I would call the campus police, but I'm usually walking around just in Somerville, so I'd probably call the Somerville police maybe.
— Sara Blankenship, second-year Fletcher student
—compiled by Victoria Rathsmill and Margaret Young
