Rebecca Mishkin feels safe in her Lancaster Avenue apartment. The senior Spanish, geography and Latin-American studies major moved to the off-campus location from Syracuse University’s South Campus without hesitation. She was still living on South Campus two years ago when she heard about the murder of SU graduate student Simeon Popov, who was fatally shot after walking in on a robbery at an off-campus apartment.

Legal closure to Popov’s slaying has been a long time coming. Prosecutors in the second trial of Dominick Dennard Jr., the man charged with the murder, are still presenting evidence, said Chief Assistant District Attorney Nicholas DeMartino. The jury may begin its deliberation by the end of next week, he added.

The university’s response to the murder, however, was more swift. Within a semester, SU had taken steps to increase the police presence in its neighborhood and provide students with information about living safely off campus. Those measures are still in force, and officials believe they are meeting with some measure of success.

One of the first steps taken was the creation of the Office of Off-Campus Student Services in July 2002. In addition to helping students find apartments and iron out conflicts with landlords, the office helps students protect themselves and their belongings. The office takes its message to the street, going door-to-door to hand out safety information, said Laura Madelone, director of OCSS. At the beginning of each semester, about 80 volunteers make the rounds handing out CD-ROMs containing information for off-campus students. The office also sends out a newsletter before winter and spring breaks with advice to help students secure their apartments while they’re away.

‘What I’m hearing from students is they like that one-on-one contact,’ she said.

Mishkin did receive a visit from OCSS staff this fall, but she said one of the only useful pieces of information she was given was the local bus schedule. She did have cause for concern, however, before leaving for Winter Break.

‘We were looking at getting broken into when we were gone,’ she said.

The extra security measures seem to have had some effect, since there was only one break-in in the university area during this Winter Break, and all of the victim’s belongings were recovered, Madelone said.

Where students’ own precautions fail, the Syracuse Police Department has stepped up with increased patrols in off-campus neighborhoods. The patrols were initiated several years ago, Madelone said, but were boosted even further following Popov’s death with a donation from the Syracuse Property Owners Association, a coalition of landlords who own property in the university area.

‘It really is there to maintain the safety and security of the neighborhood,’ said Beth Rougeux, director of the Office of Government and Community Relations.

The extra patrols are normally funded by a service fee paid by the university to the city, Rougeux said. Realizing that its students have an influence on the surrounding community, SU pays out $319,000 a year to lessen the city’s burden. A special advisory panel then determines how the money is to be spent and doles it out to the appropriate neighborhood associations.

One organization that receives service fee funds uses them to not only protect the students, but to quell some of the rowdy student behavior. The Southeast University Neighborhood Association helps fund patrols at the beginning of the school year, the time when the majority of student infractions occur, said Harry Lewis, president of SEUNA. Lewis cited the specific example of ‘Livingstock’, a 1999 block party on Livingston Avenue that degenerated into a near-riot, as one of the situations the group hopes to avoid.

‘That is where the university finally realized that it had students living off campus and they had to do something about it,’ Lewis said.

The group still has student safety at heart, however. This year, the group has requested additional funds for foot patrols in the Westcott Street area, to help keep local criminals from preying upon students.

‘They know that the Syracuse University area is prime picking for crime,’ he said. ‘As students are going through here, it’s a learning experience of living away from mom and dad.’

Published on January 29, 2004 at 12:00 pm