Thursday, July 6, 2017
2017
IDS
a (half) year in review, page 7
Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
False perceptions IU students study abroad in London amid terrorism and safety concerns Incidents in London from March-June March 22, 2017 Car and knife attack on Westminster Bridge kills six people
COURTESY PHOTO
May 22, 2017 Suicide attack kills 22 at Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena June 14, 2017 Fire ravishes Grenfell Tower apartments and kills more than 80 people
June 3, 2017 Man driving a van through pedestrians on London Bridge kills eight people
June 19, 2017 Van plows through a group of pedestrians near the Finsbury Park Mosque, killing one
Number of IU students currently in London: 166 Total number of IU students who studied in London over the summer: 192 Total number of IU students who studied around the world this summer: more than 1000 SOURCE IU Office of Overseas Study
In London, junior Zaid Karabatak plays with his cousins on the holy Muslim holiday Eid. Karabatak’s family said they were worried about him traveling to London because of the sentiment towards Muslims after multiple terrorist attacks. By Emily Abshire eabshire@indiana.edu | @emily_abs
Junior Zaid Karabatak was supposed to arrive in London the night of June 3. At 10:00 p.m. that night, a man drove a van through pedestrians on London Bridge. The attackers continued down to Borough Market in the heart of central London and launched a knife attack, according to a London Metropolitan Police statement. Eight people were killed. Karabatak wasn’t in the city because his visa had been delayed. The news of the attack was nervewracking, he said. He was worried for his friends who had travelled to England ahead of him. “Never once did I think of not coming,” he said. “It was just convincing everyone around me.” His sentiment is generally shared by the other Hoosiers in London, said Ashley Stevens, assistant director of overseas studies for SPEA. Her programs have 83 students abroad
“It’s 2017. If danger’s going to strike, it’s going to strike anywhere.” Zaid Karabatak, IU junior
in London. During the summer semester, England and London have been the location of several attention-garnering incidents. The London Bridge attack followed just a week after the bombing at a concert in Manchester, England, about 160 miles north of London. In mid June, a fire ravished all 24 stories of the Grenfell Tower apartments. 21 victims have been formally identified as of July 5, according to a London Metropolitan Police statement. Upward of 80 people are presumed dead. Five days later, a man used a
BPD increase downtown presence By Emily Eckelbarger eaeckelb@umail.iu.edu | @emeckelbarger
People’s Park, a public space known to residents as a gathering place for Bloomington’s homeless population, is considerably less populated this summer. Increased complaints of drug usage, drug dealing, fighting and harassment from business owners and visitors to downtown prompted the Bloomington Police Department to change their approach to the location. It was time to “dramatically increase our presence,” BPD Captain Steve Kellams said. BPD began increasing their presence in the downtown area, including People’s Park, about three weeks ago. Temporarily using parttime IUPD officers and parking enforcement staff to increase patrol numbers, the BPD saw a “marked difference” in the downtown area. Rather than stay at People’s Park and potentially receive citations, the homeless population moved, Forrest Gilmore, the executive director of the Shalom Community Center, said. “They weren’t evicted at all,” he said. “They just chose to leave because of the police presence.” The challenge with that, Gilmore says, is that the homeless population has to move somewhere. In the weeks after the increase in police presence, the homeless population has found shelter in abandoned buildings, alleys and forests. Most visibly, individuals have camped out two blocks west of People’s Park in the 200 block of Kirkwood Avenue. There, Gilmore says, a lot of them were woken up in the middle of the night by law enforcement.
SEE LONDON, PAGE 8
Summer workshop offers free concerts By Clark Gudas ckgudas@umail.iu.edu | @This_isnt_clark
EMILY ECKELBARGER | IDS
Parade attendees lounge in People’s Park on Tuesday. After increased police presence, the homeless population that typically inhabit the park moved out to avoid citations.
And although there are shelters in Bloomington to accommodate homeless people – the Shalom Community Center itself, the Wheeler Shelter for Men and its partner shelter for women and children and the New Hope Family Shelter – there isn’t enough space for everyone. Homeless people are struggling with not having a safe space to sleep, Gilmore said. “It’s a difficult time to be homeless,” he said. The increased number of police weren’t to target the homeless population, Kellams said. “This isn’t to do with the homelessness at all. This is about criminal behavior.”
The Shalom Community Center recently received the numbers on homelessness in Bloomington. On any given day, Bloomington has 333 homeless people on its streets. This is a slight decline from 2016, when there were 340 homeless people in Bloomington. For Gilmore, the slight decline between 2016 and 2017 is significant not in numbers, but in what it says about the current situation in downtown Bloomington. “It tells me that what we’re seeing on Kirkwood is not the product of growing homelessness. It’s not a homeless problem,” Gilmore said. “It’s an addiction problem.”
On Tuesday, a person overdosed at Shalom Community Center. This follows the record 15 overdoses from June 30, when two people overdosed near Shalom Community Center and four people overdosed in nearby Seminary Park. Bloomington’s homelessness and addiction situation continues to remain a real challenge, Gilmore said. He urged the community to get involved. “Advocate with our local officials to help motivate and encourage and support them to tackle this issue with their expertise and finances,” Gilmore said.
For the first time in IU history, all five Beethoven concertos will be played at one event. The Edward Auer Summer Piano Workshop, which runs from July 17 to July 28, is an eleven day music festival where forty participants will attend master classes and perform a series of free concerts. “Our workshop is probably very different than any of the festivals at IU,” workshop coordinator Junghwa Moon said. “It’s a lot of organizing work. It’s very international. It’s not easy to make.” Participants come from countries such as Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, England, Poland and New Zealand, and there’s a wide range of experience among them. “Our youngest one is eight, and our oldest participant is over 70,” Moon said. This year’s workshop centerpiece is a two-night performance of all five of Beethoven’s concertos which will run July 22 and 23, something program director Edward Auer and Moon said has never been done at IU. “This kind of project could maybe happen at huge festivals, if the whole town was involved,” Moon said. “This SEE PIANO, PAGE 8