Source: Marcus Ingram / Getty
With HBCU homecoming upon us, a few schools are ensuring the turn-ups go off without a hitch.
Atlanta area HBCUs –like Clark Atlanta, Morehouse College, and Spelman College— are expecting thousands of alumni and their crew to descend on their campuses and surrounding areas in the coming weeks, so they’ve all boosted their police presence around town.
It’s all the result of a drive-by shooting that occurred near Clark Atlanta University early Sunday that injured four people. Of those four, three were students, two of which were enrolled at Clark Atlanta and third at AUC.
Atlanta police say it happened when a car rolled up at the intersection of Beckwith Street and James P. Brawley Drive and let off several shots, leading to a scary ending for the first night of homecoming.
Local Fox News spoke to Jameah Alston, who’s enrolled at CAU, about the shooting and thinks it could have been prevented if the campus had better security in the first place.
“It was a whole bunch of gunshots … it was shot in rounds. Everybody just started running … it was a lot of chaos,” Alston said. “I think we need better campus safety, and we need a gated community…our community, our school campus is too open to everybody. They allow everybody on campus,” she explained.
Once facts were gathered, a crime alert was sent out to members of Clark Atlanta’s community.
“On October 16, 2022 at approximately 12:29 am, Clark Atlanta University Department of Public Safety Officers responded to a shots fired incident,” the alert began. “The safety of our students is our top priority. CAU Public Safety and Atlanta Police Departments have increased officer patrols in the area and the incident remains under investigation.”
CAU police chief Debra Williams recognizes that the criminals are not students, and the department will fight to keep the students safe.
“Unfortunately, our students must travel public streets in going between buildings on a daily basis. We note that the perpetrators were non-students, yet they have access to these thoroughfares. The safety of our students remains our top priority as we continue to work with the City of Atlanta for solutions to senseless violence impacting innocent students and residents,” Williams said.
