Earlier this month, SUNY Buffalo State students and staff learned that a shooting occurred on campus during a fight. The shooting took place on Rees Street near the Student Apartment Complex and Campus Walk Apartments. Thankfully, the shot was fired into the air and no one was hurt, but the standing question remains, is Buffalo State a safe public campus for everyone? 

Buffalo State President Dr. Katherine Conway-Turner, sent an alert emergency email to all to staff and students notifying them of the incident and giving details of the dangerous event. In response to the shooting she firmly stated in the email, “Let me be clear: guns have no place on our campus, and this kind of activity will never be tolerated.” 

The Record conducted interviews with several students asking them if they felt safe on campus and the surrounding areas. 

Sophomore journalism student, Shakina R. of Manhattan, NY, said that she’s “never felt that unsafe” on campus. 

“In the world it’s not like it’s a dangerous environment, it’s all about who you surround yourself with, where you decide to be at it’s not really like it’s dangerous or it’s not dangerous you know?” 

The conversation began to lean more on the topic of UPD and how they respond to situations that put student safety at risk such as the shooting. Shakina was not shy about sharing her views about UPD. 

“I feel like they’re very like not efficient. They don’t respond very fast to situations and I feel like they don’t have the right type of attitude or they don’t go about the situations the right way. I feel like they care because of their job not that they care because they’re keeping us safe.” 

Junior education studies major, Bella L. said:

“I would say generally I do, I definitely wouldn’t want to be like walking by myself at night though, I would say that’s the one time that I would feel like not safe but in general I would say yeah.” 

Her reasoning for this was:

“Just with like the recent incidents, now there’s been a couple of things since we’ve been here that I’ve been hearing in the past month and a half that like, I don’t know, I just wouldn’t want to be caught up in like someone trying to like steal my stuff or anything like that, but I feel like that’s not just here and that’s just an in general thing I as a female wouldn’t want to be walking by myself at night anywhere.” 

This student also began to state what she’d like to see happen differently to keep students and campus employees safe. 

“I feel like there’s nothing really like anyone on campus can do because I feel like majority of things that happen come from people off campus so they can’t really control those things as much.” 

Lastly, a 2018 Syracuse University economics graduate, Andrew Fulcher, gave his take on the safety situation. When asked how often he visits Buffalo State’s campus, Andrew responded, “Maybe once a week, or every other week. Not that often.” He began to give his opinion on the campus safety topic at hand by saying, “I mean it seems kind of safe from what I can see.” Andrew, whose father is a professor at Buffalo State, says that he always sees Buffalo State police in surrounding areas so to him it looks as though they’re doing their job to keep everyone on or near campus safe. His father, Keith Fulcher Sr., has been teaching at Buffalo State for the past 15 years and this is one reason he continues to visit the campus.