Crime Wave

Within one week, two horrifying crimes occur in Harvard's backyard. The administration says everything is under control. But is anyone really safe anymore?

The city is a dangerous place.

We are told time and time again, but it never really strikes home until one of our own is stabbed or raped in our own neighborhood. In light of recent crimes, students and faculty alike are wondering how safe they really are.

First, University police reported that a young woman who is the daughter of a Harvard affiliate was raped by an intruder in her Linnean St. home.

On Thursday of that same week, Mary Joe Frug, 49, a feminist legal scholar at Radcliffe's Bunting Institute, was left to die on the Sparks St. sidewalk, stabbed by an unknown assailant.

In a meeting that followed the Frug slaying, Cambridge Police Lt. Harold Murphy reported three other recent assaults on area women, including a sexual assault in nearby Somerville, a sexual assault near the Alewife subway station on the Arlington-Cambridge border and an assault and attempted kidnapping in the parking lot of the Porter Square Galleria.

Cambridge City Manager Robert W. Healy referred to the series of crimes as "a spree, a rash." And several observers theorized that the crime wave was an unfortunate side-effect of the coming of spring.

Socio-psychological rationalizations aside, the question most on the mind of many in the Harvard community is a simple one.

Am I safe?

With Harvard Police still working on what Chief Paul E. Johnson said yesterday is "an open investigation" of the Linnean St. rape, and with state police and the district attorney's office still working to find a suspect or a motive for the Frug stabbing, Harvard students are provided with almost daily reminders that all is not well in Cambridge.

Especially in the Frug stabbing, doubt about the particular facts of the crime has affected the public mood. If the Bunting fellow's killing was a random crime, then there is more reason for fear than if the stabber had been out to get Frug specifically, as some have suggested.

Jill Reilly, a spokesperson for the district attorney's office, said yesterday that investigators have interviewed more than 200 people in connection with the Frug slaying, including students from both Harvard and the New England School of Law.

The recent crime wave has also brought about the resurgence of latent student unease about campus security efforts. Many, especially women, seem to think the administration isn't doing enough.

In an April 1990 survey conducted by the College's Special Committee on Security, 58 percent of women said they knew of "places where there is an excess of shrubbery which might offer protection to assailants." And 62 percent of women said they did not believe "the patrolling of the campus by police and security guards is adequate."

Only 41 percent of men said they knew of excess shrubbery, and a full 66 percent of men called the patrolling "adequate."

The committee's report, announced recently, called for designated safe lighted pathways, more outdoor campus telephones and greater police visibility.

Even while the Radcliffe Union of Students amasses signatures on a petition asking for increased security measures, including a demand for more and better escort service, administrators tend to point out the difficulties with any proposed security measure.

Although Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 has said "we'll try to do what we can to make the buildings secure," citing a pilot summer electronic card-lock program as evidence, he said that in most instances there is little more the University can do to keep its students safe.

"There isn't anything that's obvious to do," Jewett says, laying some of the blame for campus crime on students who prop open or forget to lock doors and who walk alone at night without considering the risks. He said he considered the main challenge "getting people to change their mindsets."

Jewett says progress has been made since he was an undergraduate, when there was "no conception of having a shuttle bus."

Jewett says that while he is more careful about locking his own apartment now (he said there had been a serious burglary in his faculty row apartment two or three years ago), his behavior as a city walker now is not much different than it was 30 years ago.

President Derek C. Bok says he has seen no trend of increasing violence during his tenure in Cambridge, also pointing out problems with certain specific security measures.

"The security interest is paramount at a time like this, but at other times it's not so paramount, and one begins to talk about civil liberties and so forth."

Escort Answers?

In response to calls for improved escort services, Bok points out the costs involved, emphasizing the possibilities for student abuse of the service. "We want to be free and open, keep our tuition down, we want all these things, and at the same time, we want a car anytime we need it," Bok said.

"You know," Bok said, "we even get calls for the escort service when people want to go out and get an orange juice."

But while the escort service may not be in place to assist students with their late-night errands, the recent wave of crime has convinced many that violent crimes can occur at any time and any place--even in the midst of routine chores. Mary Joe Frug was killed on her way to a convenience store.

"Over 20 years, lighting and all those concerns have come up repeatedly and we've looked at them and where we see a need we will respond as indeed we should," Bok says.

"It's really not a simple matter," Bok says.

Maggie S. Tucker contributed to the reporting of this article.