SafeBears ‘23-’24 Safety Year in Review
In April 2023 a group of Cal parents concerned about student safety organized as SafeBears. A little over a year later, and now 1,600+ parents strong, SafeBears is proud of all we’ve accomplished together.
Below is our comprehensive Safety Year in Review detailing our successes, local crime trends, and significant public safety developments from January 2023 - May 2024.
Click on each section to read more.
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And . . . Go Bears! 🐻 💙
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After our members contributed $40,000 in less than a month, the SafeBears Private Security Pilot Program ran March 6 - 23, 2024. Highlights include:
Safety ambassador intervened to stop an attack near campus
Extensive media coverage – local, state and national
UC leadership took note of our program — exactly as we intended
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SafeBears’ advocacy contributed to the return of important university provided safety measures that had fallen off during the pandemic:
All 3 night safety shuttles back in service + Cal ID required to board (May ‘23)
150+ student Residential Safety Ambassadors to control nighttime access to Southside dorms (Nov. ‘23)
Hiring of more students to the Community Service Organization to patrol campus and provide walking escorts (80 CSOs by Jan. ‘24, 90 by May ‘24)
Read our overview of residence hall security.
Student RSA and CSO staffing tends to fall off over the summer. SafeBears will be monitoring the numbers closely to help ensure adequate coverage when the ‘24-’25 academic year begins.
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In February 2023 Yogananda Pittman took the helm of the UC Berkeley police department, having previously served as interim chief of the U.S. Capitol Police. Chief Pittman immediately took decisive action to improve UCPD’s ability to keep Cal students safe, including:
Hiring 10 new police officers – 47 sworn officers are on duty, with an additional 4 trainees in the police academy (as of Jan ‘24), and the department continues to hire
Revitalizing UC Berkeley’s project to create a new non sworn safety position
Recruiting more students to the Community Service Organization — as of May ‘24 there are 90 CSOs who patrol campus and university property and provide the SafeWalk walking escort, compared with just 45 CSOs in Aug. ‘23
While progress is being made, unfortunately UCPD is still short staffed – and building the department back will take time. To put this in context, about a decade ago UCPD had 80 sworn officers.
In addition, the city of Berkeley police department is in the midst of a staffing crisis, having only 150 sworn officers, out of the 181 authorized.
SafeBears will continue to support both departments and advocate for more funding, more hiring, and more crime-fighting tools (like automated license plate readers).
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In March 2024 UC Berkeley launched a dedicated Student Safety Fund, due in part to SafeBears’ advocacy. Student leadership is fine tuning the fund’s priorities, so be on the lookout for an update on how donated funds will be used to enhance student safety.
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Cal students got a lot safer in January 2024 due to the administration's bold action in taking control of People’s Park. UC Berkeley now awaits a court ruling to build much needed housing for students and low income people.
SafeBears had an opportunity to see the newly walled-off block and was struck by the dramatic transformation of the entire neighborhood: families pushing strollers, young people jogging, and other signs of life that simply weren’t there before the university took action.
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In the summer of 2023, Cal parents showed up in large numbers at Berkeley city council meetings to lobby for safety improvements, helping to propel:
Approval of cameras and automated license plate readers
Appointment of permanent chief of police
Signing bonuses for new police officers
SafeBears members also spoke before the UC regents, wrote emails and made phone calls to UC Berkeley administrators, and urged the hiring of a safety-minded new chancellor.
SafeBears leadership engaged with university and community leaders — meeting with Vice Chancellors, ASUC representatives, UC Police Department, UC Systemwide Director of Community Safety, and Business Process Management Office, among others. Topics discussed included Residential & Student Service Programs, Student Affairs, Clery Compliance, WarnMe Notification System, Title IX, Campus Lighting and Blue Light Emergency Phones.
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For months SafeBears has been sounding the alarm about problems with UC Berkeley’s WarnMe system, which has consistently failed to issue timely, accurate and informative text and email safety alerts to the community. In the summer and fall of 2023, we met with campus administration, educated our members, and spoke with CalTV.
The February 2024 shooting on Sproul Plaza proved our point – while fortunately no one was hurt and UCPD arrested the shooter within minutes, the WarnMe email took 40 minutes to arrive and described the incident only as an “aggravated assault.” As reported by the Daily Cal, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper: “By the time the WarnMe was sent out, panic had already ensued. Hundreds of distressed students had already fled from Lower Sproul Plaza, while Moffitt Library, the Valley Life Sciences Building, Unit 3 and other campus buildings went into lockdown, relying on text messages and videos circulated by the students themselves.”
After the Sproul gunfire, UC Berkeley said it would “take a closer look at our WarnMe protocols including messaging and expanding the list of campus officials with access to the emergency system.” SafeBears will be monitoring this closely.
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The ‘23-’24 academic year has seen a tone shift on campus as more students speak out about safety concerns and organize to address them.
Students spoke to the media about crime concerns and our private security pilot. Two examples: Fox News Digital and NBC Bay Area
SafeBears hosted a webinar of student leaders discussing their efforts around safety topics including overdose prevention and improved lighting on campus
SafeBears featured the University Housing Rights Organization, a new student club dedicated to improving residence hall maintenance and safety
SafeBears was in regular communication with the head of the student government (ASUC) Safety Task Force – with one result being the establishment in March 2024 of the Cal Parents & Families Student Safety Fund
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Since its founding in April 2023, SafeBears has hosted numerous informative webinars, from a discussion with a former Alameda County prosecutor to a Q&A with a UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor to a slidedeck presentation on the WarnMe emergency alert system. We’ve created useful content like our contact list for Cal administrators. We also moderate an active Facebook discussion group where we post safety-related news items and other updates.
We strive to create community through initiatives like hosting parent happy hours during freshman move-in and erecting a billboard in Berkeley to thank local police.
And we’ve built relationships with countless members of the university administration, Berkeley business owners and organizations, the city and university police departments, Berkeley community members, and safety organizations and personnel at other colleges.
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👉 UC Berkeley is the #1 university for campus crime, based on 2022 data collected by the federal Department of Education under the Clery Crime Act. Comparing crime statistics at Berkeley to other urban universities like UCLA, USC, Columbia and the University of Washington, Cal students face a disproportionate threat from crimes like robbery and aggravated assault. (You can compare data for multiple schools on the DOE website.)
👉 As of May 2024, robberies are down in Berkeley for 2024, a welcome development. But serious crime on and near campus continues to be a major concern. Here are some incidents from January - May 2024, many of which occurred during the day or early evening:
Shooting on Lower Sproul Plaza at 8:40pm with scores of students in the vicinity
2 sexual assaults in which Cal students were tackled to the ground, one at 8pm near campus and the other on a campus path;
4 violent incidents at the West Crescent campus entrance: two strong armed robberies and two aggravated assaults;
Mid-afternoon robbery via knife outside the Physics Building;
Armed robbery & pistol-whipping of a man holding a baby on a street near campus
Other robberies near campus, including a 19-year-old Cal student robbed at gunpoint and a daytime robbery at Caffe Strada.
Intruder gained access to an upper floor lounge of a freshman residence hall
(For more information about some of the crime and security issues from the fall 2023 semester, read our Fall ‘23 Safety Update.)
👉 Violent crime in the city of Berkeley rose 15% in 2023, according to the Berkeley Police Department’s Annual Crime Report. As reported by The Berkeley Scanner:
Pedestrian robberies and carjackings were both up significantly.
Armed robberies saw a five-year high, with 29% of Berkeley robberies involving a gun in 2023.
Property crime was up about 10%, with burglary, auto theft and arson all increasing.
