An apology to the Stacks

We received this email today:

University Police are re-issuing to campus the following crime alert from the Minneapolis Police Department. Over the weekend there were four robberies of person in southeast Minneapolis. In three of those cases, University of Minnesota students were victims. These are Minneapolis investigations, however University Police in cooperation with Minneapolis are directing patrol resources into those neighborhoods.
*Minneapolis Police Department Crime Alert:*
*Facts:*
Over the weekend, the 2nd Precinct had six armed robberies. The
victims have been females who have had their purse or possessions
taken. They occurred at:
. 14th Ave NE and 3rd St NE — 11/15/2008 7:55 p.m.
. 20th Ave NE and 4th St NE — 11/16/2008 1:15 a.m.
. 2500 block of University Ave SE — 11/16/2008 2:53 a.m.
. 12 Ave SE and 7th St SE — 11/16/2008 3:07 a.m.
. 10 Ave SE and 7th St SE — 11/16/2008 9:25 p.m.
. 12 Ave SE and 4th St SE — 11/17/2008 12:52 a.m.

And no, the University of Minnesota isn’t some decrepit, dangerous place. The main campus is less than a mile from downtown. The list essentially includes all the muggings that happened in downtown Minneapolis and surrounding neighborhoods this weekend. It’s a city. People get mugged.

The University of Minnesota also has over 50,000 students. So if a 20-something gets robbed in Minneapolis there’s a fair chance she goes to the U…especially if she’s skipping around the streets from 1-3am on a weekend in 30 degree weather.

I spend a lot of time studying in the business school and the surrounding cafes. That part of campus is overshadowed by multicolored project towers that we affectionately call the Stacks.

I live in a different neighborhood, on other side of the river from the Stacks.

Law students make jokes about the Stacks and the supposedly seedy neighborhood that surrounds them…but the irony is that the last location on crime email’s mugging list is literally one street from the Gamma house.

The mugging didn’t happen by the Stacks, but in cutesy-little “oh so collegiate” Dinkytown, where all the Fraternities, Sororities, dorms and student orgs are.

Dinkytown is a pretty high crime area because it’s essentially a student-town (read: easy targets). Our fraternity house was already broken into this semester, and a housemate’s car has been robbed twice.

And yet we make fun of the Stacks.

I haven’t convinced the housemates to let me get a pitbull yet, but one more robbery might do the trick…