Security Woes Continue at The Roblin Centre

STUDENTS DISAPPOINTED WITH SECURITY AFTER INCIDENT ON CAMPUS

BY KATHERINE IVEY

 

A loud clatter rang through the atrium as a man who had just spent the last seven minutes screaming in the middle of campus stood next to a metal chair he had just thrown to the ground.

On Wednesday, November 15 at 1:31 p.m., a man walked into The Roblin Centre and started screaming the name Stephanie repeatedly.

 

He clumsily walked around the Atrium before entering the girl’s washroom.

 

“He kept yelling ‘Where’s Stephanie?,’ and slamming the stall doors,” said Aimee Souka, 18, a student who was in the washroom at the time.

 

After about 30 seconds, the man exited the washroom.

 

“I was really scared, honestly,” said Souka. “Some security we have.”

 

When the man got back to the south side of building, he picked up a chair and threw it to the ground.

 

At this point, two security guards came into the atrium. They brought the man outside only to have him walk around the building and re-enter through the north Atrium doors.

 

This time, he was quickly ushered back outside. However, many students felt that the situation was handled poorly.

 

“They should have reacted faster, because why else is security here?” said Lea Unruh, 18, a business admin student at RRC.

 

Unruh said on more than one occasion while studying after school there have been similar incidents  and security has never done anything.

 

“If he (found) this Stephanie girl, she could have gotten hurt,” said Unruh.

 

At 1:42 p.m., the police arrived on campus. A security guard on duty at the time said they were not the ones who had called the police.

 

The man was already off campus by the time they got there and the police left soon after arriving.

 

Students who had come into the atrium during the disturbance now stood in groups looking warily around them.

 

Ten minutes after the man left campus security locked the doors to the atrium.

 

“We want to secure the campus because he just kept trying to come in,” said one of the security guards on duty at the time. “I’m not sure where he is now.”

 

According to Rick Lange, the security supervisor for The Roblin Centre, security’s job is to monitor, contain and verbally confront people during situations of conflict.

 

“Security is not police,” said Lange. “They cannot arrest anyone and there are only two on duty at that campus.”

 

Lange said that since one security member must be in the office at all times the other could be anywhere on campus, so reacting to events can sometimes take time.

 

It wasn’t until about five minutes after the man started screaming that security got there. Upon arrival, the security guards watched as the man walked down the hall.

 

He let out one more yell for Stephanie and grabbed a chair, hurling it to the ground. This is when security, without saying anything to the man, walked him out of the school. The man did not put up a fight to leave.

 

After the man had left the building a young man picked the metal chair up and put it back in place.