Pasadena City College
Energy Drinks:
Think twice before you
chug down one of these
badboys.
Page 4
Volume 96, Issue 1
“The Only Independent Student Voice of PCC, Serving Pasadena Since 1915.”
Thursday, July 19, 2007
What's Inside
Search Continues For Suspect in Stabbing
Jesus Gomez/Courier
A police K-9 unit searches for an unidentified suspect who stabbed a campus dispatcher inside the PCC police station on Sunday, June 10 at 4:30
p.m. Although it has been over a month since the incident, Pasadena police have made no arrests in the stabbing case.
‘Search’ - Page 3
Police Make Plea
Rocky Wu/Courier
Entertainment
Hot Tracks: Sit back
and relax with the top
four Indie albums of the
summer. Page 5
Rocky Brown/Courier
Arts
PCC’s Public Display of
Art: A type of P.D.A.
that doesn’t make you
cringe. Page 6
Next Issue...
Look out for a
Welcome Day
special edition,
which will be on
stands Friday,
Aug. 25.
Campus Police Voice
Its Safety Concerns
At a Board Meeting-
After a Dispatcher is
Stabbed
Nico Stevens and
Christian Daly
Staff Writer, News Editor
In response to the recent stabbing
of Ralph Humphrey, Pasadena City
College Police Department dispatch
operator , by an unknown assailant,
Detective Alan Chan and other
members of campus police
appeared before the board of
trustees during the public comment
period of the June 19 meeting, with
a plea for firearms for the PCCPD.
Currently PCCPD does not car-
ryy firearms. Chan went to the
board to help them seek the “equip¬
ment and tools we need to perform
our duties to the highest level possi¬
ble,” and asked the Board “to think
seriously about the safety on our
campus.”
Chan said the option of waiting
for armed reinforcements from the
Pasadena Police Department
“could result in one or more lives
lost in the time delay it takes to get
to campus” due to the inability of
the PCCPD to take armed action.
“We can no longer ignore the
threats on our campus.”
Kindred Murillo, vice president
of administrative services, was
present for the PCCPD’s
presentation.
“I don’t know right now what the
right thing to do is. I have asked
Peter Michael [chief of PCCPD] to
conduct research about the process
of becoming an armed campus and
what is required,” said Murillo, who
seeks to attain information to help
make an accurate choice.
According to Murillo, 72 of 110
community colleges are post-certified
to carry firearms, but Murillo wants
to know how many community
colleges are armed. In Michael’s
research, she asked him to contact
local colleges like Glendale
Community College to get a sense
of what other colleges have in place.
On June 10, Humphrey was
“brutally attacked” by an unknown
suspect “who had the audacity to
breach the campus police office,”
Chan said. Chan speculated that it
seemed the attacker had “prior
knowledge” of the police office
layout and already knew that “we
are an unarmed police
department.”
The assailant attacked Humphrey
with a knife, who defended himself
with his bare hands. He then
“sustained severe lacerations on his
wrists and forearms” and “a severe
stab wound to the chest.” He was
left with a collapsed lung and the
knife impaled in his chest.
Humphrey was “bleeding
profusely on the floor” as he
crawled over to the radio to call for
help. The recording of his plea for
help was played at the meeting.
With panic in his voice, Humphrey
described someone who “came into
the dispatch office... I was fighting
with him... Please help!”
Murillo, who heard the
recording, described it as “terror.”
“I don’t like to think of any
employee in a dangerous
situation.,” said Murillo, who her¬
self has been held at gun point.
At the meeting, Chan recalled the
trauma surgeon who operated on
Humphrey to have said,
“[Humphrey] is lucky to have
survived. Most people with these
kinds of wounds usually do not.”
Officer James R. Karch was said
to be the first to arrive to help.
Obviously, he was unarmed and
“risking his own safety,” Chan said.
Though Murillo agrees with Chan
concerning Karch jeopardizing his
life coming back to help, she doesn’t
believe having guns would have pre¬
vented the stabbing, because dis¬
patchers are not armed.
Chan suggested that such things
can happen to anyone at anytime
anywhere.
“It could be the secretary who’s
at her desk late at night, an
instructor grading papers, a student
in the library or the custodian
attending to the restroom. The list
of potential victims is endless.”
Though the board has taken no
action toward this issue, Murillo
wants to hear the students’ point of
view about having guns on campus.
Murillo may be emailed at
kimurillo@pasadena . edu .
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