Despite federal law, ACC not reporting timely crime info

Editor's Note - Before this issue hit the stands, but after this story was sent to the printer, the ACC Police Department updated their website. The new information is reflective of crimes that happened this semester. The Clery Act states that crime logs need to be updated within two business days of a crime occurring.

Former ACC student Rita Pena was stabbed in 2006 by ACC student Reginald Cooper, whom she did not know. She was trying to get in her car, parked at a meter just off ACC Rio Grande Campus. She was leaving her ACC math class. ACC Officer Joanna Weaver found Pena on the ground while patrolling near the campus.

According to ACC Police Chief Frankie Waller this was not an ACC crime.

This is one example of several ways that the ACC campus police are potentially out of compliance with federal guidelines set up to keep college campuses safe.

In an arguable violation of the federal Clery Act, the college police department did not report this crime to the Department of Education in the required annual report. In a clear violation, the reports filed about this and other crimes are not readily accessible to students.

Last semester, after prompting from The Accent, the college's police department launched a website to start reporting daily crimes. This website was an attempt to satisfy requirements for the Clery Act.

Under the Act, daily crime logs are supposed to be a running account of crimes as they are reported.

This is the biggest violation of the Act that ACC is committing.

The law specifies that crimes have to be reported within two business days. The running crime log has to be available to students immediately for the 60 days prior, and any log from before those 60 days needs to be furnished within two business days of the request. As of March 31 that information was not available to the public.

Currently ACC crime logs indicate that no crime has occurred since early November of last year. This is not because there hasn't been a crime reported, but because the college police department has decided that they will only update the crime logs quarterly, according to Chief Waller.

This means that the last 60 days of crime logs are not available to students.

"Crimes have to be reported and made available in two business days. The law is explicit here. Where did he get the idea that it could be reported quarterly?" asked S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus.

Security on Campus is a non-profit organization founded by the parents of Jeanne Clery, a 19-year old Lehigh University student who was raped and murdered in her dormitory in 1986.

After Clery's death, her parents Connie and Howard Clery, found out that students at the university had not been told of 38 violent crimes that occurred on the campus in the three years prior to Clery's murder. Along with other victims, they persuaded Congress to pass the law, originally the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, now known as the Jeanne Clery Act.

ACC police are also having problems reporting everything that is required to be reported on the daily crime logs. The missing information in the annual reports, and on the daily logs, means that students and the police themselves can not draw accurate conclusions about important security information like campus crime rates.

While looking at the crime statistics, Carter said "There are a lot of things here that don't seem to be compliant; they need to break it down geographically by more than just campus for one thing."

The crime logs are located under the Clery section of the campus police website.

Because the intent of the Clery Act is that campus police report crimes that would reasonably effect students, not just on-campus crime has to be reported.

"Legally if it took place on public property [around the campus] it absolutely needs to be reported. It's not on campus, that doesn't matter," Carter said.

The Clery act also states that a good faith effort has to be made to contact city police in order to better report crimes that affect students' safety.

"It's difficult to distinguish which crimes in the city of Austin are ACC related," said Waller "We don't know about them until we read about it in the paper."

Reportable public property areas are defined as beginning at the sidewalk on the side of campus property and continuing to the end of the sidewalk across the street from campus.

In the case of Pena's attack, she was off campus by less then 100 feet, but she was well within ACC police patrol jurisdiction, and the Act also requires off campus crimes that occur on public property near the campus to be reported on the daily log.

"Personally I have no patience with people saying that it's not in their jurisdiction if it's on their patrol route, but it could be arguable depending on where it happened," Carter said.

Pena was stabbed multiple times while trying to get into her car, including in her throat. Due to nerve damage, she doesn't have full use of her left hand.

She spent nine days in the hospital, and took two years off from school to recover. Now 26, she is hoping to graduate next year from Texas State University with a degree in Communications. She has not been on any ACC campus since the attack.

"I'm not surprised," said Pena, when asked about the fact that her and other crimes are not reported. "Anyone that wants to go to any school should have access to this kind of information, so that they can take it into consideration."

Resource

• ACC Campus Police Crime Reports