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Allen I am as troubled as all should be especially regarding the Homeland Ave. outstanding Criminal Justice major murder and the Franklin Blvd shooting.. Was Chaplin stalking his former classmates when arrested on campus last week? Was he paranoid and believed everyone he ever sat in class with may ID him. His Jersy roots and Hayle NY roots with just common hellos may have lead to psycopathic panic of he knows me let me take him out and anyone else that ever looked at me. My heart dies inside every time a young promising student is gunned down.Christine

I agree whole heatedly with this. Too often police dont want to take responsibility for something unless it's about something good. Yeah they arrested someone who's been wanted for sometime now, but why do they always wait for something tragic to happen before taking action on what needs to be done? Police, in my utmost opinion, are the biggest failures in today's society. Coming from an area where police cannot be trusted, I hope to see the day when they can do their job and not just breeze by the problems until the situation becomes chaotic. Neither Greensboro or A&T police want to take responsibility for Dennis Hayle, but both pay no attention to that area unless its at their convenience. Take responsibility and start doing your job.

Who exactly are the above two morons? Neither one can spell or complete a sentence. Perhaps one or the other will one day be President.

I admit I'm from NJ (Jersy, sic) and I have minimal tolerance for idiots. My brother works for Brinks in NC and I consider the apprehension of a murderer by the NC A&T and the Greensboro Police to be a pretty damn good thing. Feel free to criticize -- and then try to do their jobs. The young man who was killed in December just doing his job may never have had the entitlements and privileges you apparently believe to be your birthright. OOOH, we're so mean (and honest) up north. God bless the NC A&T and Greensboro police.

I completely feel its quite necessary to have all police officials working hand in hand, with a goal of minimizing the crime in the city, however its extremely tragic though it takes spurts of violent occurences for pages to be flipped in unison.

I agree, if something is not done, and soon, about all of this gun violence, we as students and as a community in Greensboro are all at risk. If something is not done, and soon, the gun violence will get out of hand and out of control very soon. I am a student, but I live on campus. I feel pretty safe, but to know that so much gun violence is occurring, I am not sure anymore. I had confidence in the police that they would protect and serve me. But now that confidence is slowly fading away. I feel that I am relying more on myself and friends to protect eachother. I am a citizen of America, and currently, of Greensboro. Will someone please ensure me that I am protected while away from home and at school??

Dickens,
No one can protect you but you. There are not enough police to have one standing on every corner waiting for some miscreant to strike. Crime is everywhere, and all the police can do is respond to calls for help. In the words of a popular song- "by the time you hear the sirens it's already too late".
We all know the legacy that "don't be a snitch" has left- unsolved crimes, primarily against African American males. Do you really believe that in a theater full of movie attendees no one saw a shooter?
You need to take your safety into your own hands- the "neighborhood watch" concept can work on campus as well as in the community. Arrange group watches armed with cellphones (I know you got 'em) and let the non-academic visitors know that you're there.
I realize you have forgone the right to carry because you are on school property, but before you demonize guns, there are 85 million Americans who live peaceably because they exercise their God-given rights as enumerated by the 2nd Amendment.

Police all over the world, join hands.
Start a love train, love train. Come on!

The first stop we make will be BJ's.
Say hello to the folks at Foothills and Marion too...
Let's go see the folks out at Leavenworth. Cause if you miss it we'll feel sorry, sorry for you.

All the people up in Attica. All the folks in the Toombs and Huntsville too.
We' stop off at the Smith and Wesson factory.
Stop by the Rap-Record and Movie Companies too.

Cops all over the world, join hands. Start a love train, love train. Cops all over the world, join hands...

I totally agree with this post's statement. If the Greensboro police and our campus police would simply work together more then there will be more success stories such as this where criminals are actually caught. Especially in light of recent events, if only the campus police and Greensboro police would have worked more efficiently together we would not have lost a fellow Aggie, Dennis Hayle, who is still greatly missed. Hopefully, this situation will in fact encourage more of the Greensboro police and our A&T campus police to work more hand in hand.

In response to the Anonymous user:

Yes we must protect ourselves, and starting a neighborhood watch isn't bad either, but a community can only go so far. We can report the crime, but we can't arrest anyone. I could see if both police departments were doing their absolute best, but I don't feel as though we have recived anything near their best. I was told there are not enough officers to cover all danger areas, yet shootings can continue to occur in the same area over and over again. Yes, we can become licensed gun holders, but I do not see where more guns is going to solve anything. The protection will be temporary and sadly another life will be lost being the victim or the suspect. Which doesn't solve anything. I agree with this article because the police need to work like this more often. It almost angers me to see them praise acts like arresting a suspect because last time I checked, that was in their job duties. Maybe I'm just cruel for not wanting to give a cookie to every cop who performs his PAID duties.

P.S. to Janet:

GET OVER YOURSELF! From a fellow New Jersey Resident!

I agree whole-heartedly that more should be (and should have been done before) to maintain the safety of A&T's students. Not their students, but UNCG, Bennett and all surrounding colleges. Too many innocent lives are being taken and from a student stand point, I've notice one thing about A&T's police efforts: things change when something happens.

For example, I was involved in an incident in the Williams Cafeteria in Sept. 2007. Before that, there was only one police officer in the cafeteria and none of the cameras in Ward Hall caught the incident on tape. Why had there not been more safety precautions made? Why is it that something has to happen (someone shot or seriously injured) for police to do what they were originally hired to do anyway? PROTECT AND SERVE

I agree that the two parties need to come together. However, the community has to get involved as well to get things to really improve. If A&T and GPD work together, but members of the community continue to withhold information, we will not get anywhere. If the community felt safe enough, they would gladly give information of what they know or have seen. But if they feel that the perpetrator will come and retaliate, they are more prone to keep quiet. Overall safety improvements must be made in order to decrease violence as well as promote involvement and help the community in divulging information.

To JANET: Im from the NORTH. So thanks for ASSuming.

In light of all that has been said,

I just want to say that every story has two sides. As an A&T student, it is quite obivous that my safety, as well as the safety of my colleagues and friends, is of the most importance to me. However, I do want to point out just a few small things:

I actually did some research of my own (which I encourage everyone to do) and discovered that there actually is a mutual aid agreement with the City of Greensboro Police Department and North Carolina A&T Police. That's good. Here's the bad: it hasn't been updated since 1998. But there is still another side to that piece: it is currently being updated as we speak.

In reference to the obvious suggestion of people working together, A&T Police and GPD do work together on a number of occasions, it is just very unfortunate that the A&T Police Department does not have the manpower necessary to extend itself outside of 1601 E. Market St. very often. However, if the assistance is needed on either end, it is provided.

I say these things to just remind everyone that while we are jumping down the throats of the police, we must remember that everyone has the limitations of a budget, and these days with the economy the way it is, we are probably lucky to have the amount of police we do have, even if it seems that we do not have enough.

NOW,that doesn't mean that I am giving the police departments a free pass. The GPD police headquarters is not even 2 miles from campus, yet it seems that it takes them the longest time to respond to the campus area. Hmmm, seems a little strange, no?

However I am also aware that the GPD is being asked to a lot more than it is used to. You have 600 officers in relation to 500,000 + people in the area of Greensboro. That is 833.333 residents to every one officer if you do the math.

A&T's University Police Department secures a 188 acre area of over 10000 people: a small city within a city. They have about 30-40 officers to do so, which is about 250 people per officer on average.

I point this out to say this: We cannot expect GPD to handle the Universities problems. It's just not fair. They have 490000 other people to protect. HOWEVER, we can hold them responsible for keeping their jurisdiction together, especially when it is right around the corner from campus.

Also, lets point out that almost none of these violent incidents are happening on the campus of North Carolina A&T. NONE. In fact, the campus is down 33 incident calls this year, according to an officer in the Department. It is outside of campus, in the jurisdiction of the city, where there are problems.

This is my point:

Before we all start pointing the blame, and very understandably so, lets do a little research.

P.S. to S.Bailey

I know that it may seem as though there are not enough police around when we need them, and I have shared that sentiment. But lets try to remember that they work 24 hours a day, and while they should, they just can't be everywhere 24 hours a day. There simply aren't enough of them. But I was also at the Cafeteria that day, and I remember just how quickly one officer became five. It took maybe 2 minutes. I would say that considering the stabber was a non-student who came on campus looking for trouble, that no one suspected because he blended in so well, the police did a pretty good job.

And I have seen improvements by leaps and bounds since the 2006-2007 academic year. We all talk about how much the police don't need the segues, k-9 units, new cars, bike units (they are coming very soon) and other things they have. But since they have gotten them, look at how quickly campus became safe. And in reference to anyone who may think the UNCG police are better than ours, the A&T police department is the 1st and Only HBCU that is fully accreditted by CALEA, (do some research and figure out what that means) and the only school in the UNC system to have that accredittation. Not even Chapel Hill has that.

"However I am also aware that the GPD is being asked to a lot more than it is used to. You have 600 officers in relation to 500,000 + people in the area of Greensboro. That is 833.333 residents to every one officer if you do the math."
You are making an error in logic.

Let me help you with the math on this one. On any given day, there 1/2 of the available patrol officers on duty (no one works 365 days/year). Divide that by four (the number of districts assigned) and further by two (day/night shifts), and you begin to see the problem. There are approximately 320 patrol officers divided between shift rotations, districts and beat hours (including Sergeants, corporals and patrol officers). If everyone is present, that boils down to twenty officers on patrol at any one time. Remember, officers are distribute over the city of Greensboro, not sitting in a building somewhere (two miles from campus) waiting on calls. Add to that officers tied up at the jail, magistrate, vehicle crash, three hospitals, mental health, domestic disturbance, shoplifting etc. etc. ad nauseum, and you can appreciate the need for folks to begin to take some responsibility for themselves (see Anonymous' post above).

Protect and Serve is commonly misconstrued as an absolute protection from criminal activity.

June 27, 2005 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation."

Eyeswideopen:

Thank you for the correction. That makes my point even more clear. I appreciate it.

Allen, since I've been ex-communicated from Pope John's blog, could you ask him if there's any chance he could set up a twitter of the Trial of the Century-Scott Sanders. I, along with every other citizen of the county and perhaps even State, so want to know if he hacked a Fed. computer to try and find scum bags in the GPD. This is a vitally important event to all citizens-not just in G-Boro, but beyond, and we deserve to see this unfold in real time.

Thank you