<p>Students say their views on overall campus safety and attitudes toward university police may be altered due to the recent use of a Taser on a student ? but statistics show violent crime on campus is fairly low.
<br/>UCPD Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Young said crime in the U.S. has generally decreased in recent years, and that campus crime has followed those trends.
<br/>?There is very little crime on campus,? he said. ?When you have low numbers, rashes (of crime) skew the figures.?
<br/>UCPD reports that in 2005 property crime made up over 91 percent of campus crime, while violent crime, which includes assault, rape and robbery, made up just over eight percent.
<br/>Some students say their view of campus safety procedures has been altered due to the incident.
<br/>?Before the Taser incident it never would have crossed my mind to be wary of the campus police. However, now, if I were to partake in some sort of protest or rally on campus, I would perhaps conduct myself differently,? said Monika Bartos, a first-year undeclared student.
<br/>But Berky Nelson, director of the Center for Student Programming, said he believes the Taser incident was ?an aberration? and a unique situation.
<br/>He added that students should feel safe on campus, and that UCPD has protected students well in the past.
<br/>?Police are not out to Taser students,? he said.
<br/>Total violent crime has stayed almost exactly the same since 2003, while property crime has increased considerably.
<br/>Young remarked that theft is the most common on-campus crime and is usually the result of people not paying attention to personal property and leaving things such as laptops and iPods out in the open. He said students should be aware of their surroundings and be ready to work with UCPD to keep the campus safe.
<br/>?Students need to understand and have a role in their own safety,? he said.
<br/>Young added that the department is a service-oriented group that takes a balanced approach in order to work with the office of Student Affairs and student governments. UCPD has been trying to do more advising on personal safety through its Web site, brochures and in-person presentations, Young said, noting that UCPD will give short advisory talks to any group that wants them to come, such as fraternities or sororities.
<br/>But Young said he does understand the concerns students have following the incident two weeks ago, saying UCPD?s relationship with the community has been ?more effective in the past.?
<br/>Nelson said UCPD has always put student interests first.
<br/>?There is no comparable incident to this,? he said, referring to the Taser incident. He said he does not believe students are targeted by police, nor that after investigations students will be viewed as targets of UCPD. He cautioned students against basing their attitudes toward UCPD and campus safety solely on the video of the Taser incident.
<br/>?What we saw looked terrible,? he said. ?But you have to look at the beginning, middle and end of the incident.?
<br/>But Nelson said students have handled the incident in a ?very mature way.?
<br/>?I have nothing but accolades for the students who met with the law enforcement ... (and) for the students who participated in the demonstration,? he said.</p><br><br><a href='http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=39138&#039; target='_blank'>http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=39138&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br>