The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 9/21/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Sam Noblett Krista Richardson and Alison McCoy pose next to one of the call boxes used by safewalk to communicate with people who would like to use Safewalk. Safewalk is a service that allows people to have someone accompany them when walking alone on campus at night.

*Editor's note: The acronym CSO stands for campus service officer, not "campus security officer," as inaccurately reported in the Monday, Sept. 21 edition of the Collegian. The Collegian regrets this error.



The golden glow of a street lamp shown down on the intersection of Plum and Shields Streets Thursday, illuminating Alison McCoy and Krista Richardson as they stood waiting, hands in pockets, for the crosswalk light to change while shepherding a fellow CSU student home.

*Before Thursday night, the two student campus service officers had never met this student, and yet, they walked with her from Moby Arena to her apartment, about two blocks west of campus, talking about classes, their social lives and mothers who worry too much about their kids.

"When we were in our CSO academy they told us to, you know, talk to them and to make them feel comfortable. We don't want it to be an awkward walk," McCoy, a junior human development and family studies major, said.

Upon reaching Moby, Richardson had spotted the client, a CSU student in a yellow shirt, and approached her, asking her name and initiating a conversation. Using her two-way radio she then reported back to CSU Police Department's dispatch center to let them know the SafeWalk had begun.

The walk ended when the student gestured to her home and disappeared in between the cars in a parking lot. For about 30 seconds after, McCoy and Richardson stopped and checked the area to make sure it was safe before returning to campus.

Continued...

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