• Caleb Daniloff

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  • Art Jahnke

    Senior Contributing Editor

    Art Janke

    Art Jahnke began his career at the Real Paper, a Boston area alternative weekly. He has worked as a writer and editor at Boston Magazine, web editorial director at CXO Media, and executive editor in Marketing & Communications at Boston University, where his work was honored with many awards. Profile

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 10 comments on Two Students Robbed of Cell Phones

  1. Hey BU Today,
    Could you please stop telling us the race of an assailant when you report, and use that as the only description (besides gender) that you give them?

    It wasn’t relevant to this story at all, and I’m not sure what the point is– you certainly aren’t aiming to help students recognize these particular assailants if they show up again– there are no height, weight, age or facial descriptions (not that these would be really helpful anyway)– so what is your point in telling us the men were black?

    Don’t enough people already cross the street when they see a black man walking behind them? Do we really need more reinforcement of this racist generalization that makes a white woman think every black man walking behind her is a potential assailant?

  2. Every time there is a robbery like this, the same advice is given. When are people going to learn?!!?

    Also, what I found a little interesting was that in the emergency alert it was stated that it was an “armed robbery” but that no weapons were seen. Hmm…

  3. I agree that racial profiling is unnecessary, though I would like to point out that the article does in fact include height, weight, age, hair, and clothing descriptions of the individuals.

  4. Race is an important tool that can be used to identify a suspect. It is not being used here in an effort to be racist, but rather to provide a description of the suspects And BU Today does mention all those other things you requested:

    “Police describe the suspects as two black males, 20 to 25 years old. One suspect is described as 6’0″, 220 to 230 pounds, with very short hair, wearing a very large black zip-up jacket and dark jeans. The other is believed to be 5’8″, 180 to 190 pounds, wearing a large beige zip-up jacket with “G-Unit” written across the front.”

    That covers height, age, weight, and articles of clothing they were wearing at the time of the crime. These are pieces of information that could help the police or even other students recognize the suspects in the future. It is hardly a generalization.

    The point of mentioning race in the article is simply to describe the suspect, not make a racist comment. If the criminals were white, or Asian, or Middle Eastern, they would also have a mention of their race in the police report.

  5. Find a means to protect yourself, whether that means the ability to run away from a situation, or fight back. Don’t give the muggers an incentive to mug you. If villains know BU students are easy picking the muggings won’t stop. If villains know that BU won’t put up with it and will not comply to muggers demands, muggers with realize that the payoff takes too much work, and they will move to another area. Good guys don’t win by appeasing the bad guys, history and an elementary school bully or two has taught us all that. Legally (i.e. to not get sued by SOME scumbag lawyers trying to make some commission) BU have to say “Be a schtick and hand over your first born child if the bad man/woman do so demand” I hope people are smart enough to know BU must say that. Talk to most cops and they’ll let you know as I have: criminals don’t like a fight.

    to “Why Race?”

    Race is always used to identify perps. Cops and victims will and always have used it. This, combined with other descriptions, makes it easier to track if it is serial muggings or just a isolated incident. This way the cops can do a better job of catching the perp, whether black, white, orange, red, yellow, green, or pink with purple polka dots. Don’t let political correctness go too far to undermine all of our safety.

    The journalist can’t be held responsible for reporting the truth, the pure facts that were relayed to him/her, the stereotype enforced itself in this incidence. You’re making more to this story than there is. Race is just an identifier for the police.

    Try to find the real victims here, because it’s not you, it’s the people who were mugged.

  6. Note from BU Today: Why Race?’s comment was submitted when the information we had was still scant. We inserted additional details regarding the suspects as soon as we obtained them. So the story’s first comment was in reaction to an earlier iteration. Apologies for any confusion.

    Thanks,

    CD

  7. “This interview originally ran July 28, 2010.”

    Oh, so that’s why the advice is barely applicable to yesterday’s situation, in which students were robbed IN BROAD DAYLIGHT RIGHT OUTSIDE A HIGH-TRAFFIC UNIVERSITY FACILITY. Is it unreasonable to expect an explanation of how BU security failed to prevent this? Or should I just accept that it’s unsafe to use a cell phone anywhere on campus at any time of day?

  8. To “Why Race” – I could not agree with you more. Sure, it makes sense for the police to be able to identify the race of the assailants, but that doesn’t mean BU Today needs to be putting suspicions into our heads if we see a black man walk by (not that I believe that was their intent). BU is the perfect place for us to practice greater racial sensitivity, even – and perhaps especially – in our actions that were not meant to cause harm.

  9. Maybe if the BUPD wasn’t so busy writing tickets to cyclists and patrolling crosswalks, there would actually be some protection – in BROAD DAYLIGHT – against potentially armed and dangerous criminals. Glad to see my 52,000 a year is keeping me safe.

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