Students still unsure

Lack of prompt notification causes concern on campus following emergency

ANNABEL SILVA STAFF REPORTER

Riverside City College students have vocalized concerns for their safety following new information regarding a campus emergency that took place April 18.

Riverside Community College

District Chief of Police Christopher Cano presented a timeline of the incident to the District Board of Trustees on May 2. The timeline revealed that authorities received reports of a man walking near the campus with a knife in hand at 7:19 a.m., just over two hours before the campus received an emergency alert to “shelter-in-place.”

“It makes me feel unsafe, it makes me feel like the school doesn’t care about the students safety,” RCC student Diana Rosales said. “I think they handled this in the worst way possible for a college campus.”

She questioned if students were a top priority or if the school’s reputation was.

“If it was to protect their image of handling the situation, and that’s why they didn’t tell us, then it shows who they are,” Rosales said.

“I’d understand if they’d want to not panic students but at the same time they need to be more honest and direct with us,” RCC student Gabriel Zaragoza said. “Anything could have happened, no matter the severity of the incident.”

Students were left to feel uncertain if the campus is safe to come inperson. Many looked through social media to find any more information about what was happening.

“I hopped on Instagram, and went to the City of Riverside’s Instagram page, and it was through the comments that I was getting more information,” Zaragoza said.

“I noticed (something wrong) around the bottom floor of the Parking Structure, there never is any security,” RCC student Ruby Gonzales said.

They said that there should be more security on a daily basis.

“I felt like no one knew what was going on,” Gonzalez said. “There is something we could all learn from (this) to prevent anything from happening.”