St. Joe’s beefed up its security after a shooting, home invasions, and assaults, but critics say it’s not enough

The night before St. Joe’s student Tommy McBride was scheduled to serve as a coordinator at freshman orientation, he arrived at his home just four blocks from campus in Philadelphia’s Overbrook section.

“I was in my car sending a message to the leader team, telling everyone to get a good night’s rest and to get excited for the following day,” said the 21-year-old from Cherry Hill. “And as I was about to press send ... a Dodge Charger pulls up right next to my car.”

Immediately, two males wearing ski masks and holding guns jumped out, pulled open his door, and dragged him out, he said. One of the gunmen fired into the air, then put a bullet in McBride’s knee.

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McBride never made freshman orientation that June week. He spent 12 weeks on crutches and still awaits another surgery. He and his college roommates left their house in the 2000 block of Upland Way and moved to nearby Manayunk.

“We all decided it was not safe physically and mentally to live there anymore,” he said, “especially with that not being the only incident of gun violence and crime” in the neighborhood.

There were two home invasions of student residences, one in July near 57th Street and Drexel Road, when a student was tied up and robbed of his wallet and laptop, and a similar incident in September in the 2300 block of North 58th Street. Then during finals week in mid-December, two members of the rowing team were assaulted off campus in separate incidents less than 24 hours apart.

The number of aggravated assaults, robberies with a firearm, and thefts has increased near its main campus, and at a higher rate than the city as a whole, according to an analysis of Philadelphia Police Department data. That’s left the Catholic university, which straddles Philadelphia and Lower Merion Township, fielding a growing number of complaints from parents and students.

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“Many of you have heard from your children or through our safety alert notifications that there has been a pattern of robberies and attempted robberies in recent weeks,” Cheryl A. McConnell, St. Joseph’s interim president, wrote to parents last month. “We have been very fortunate that none of our students have sustained life-threatening injuries, but these incidents are highly troubling.”

Other universities are also dealing with the fallout of rising violence in the city, which has been experiencing record levels of gun violence in recent years, including more than 500 homicides in both 2021 and 2022. At Drexel in West Philadelphia, where school officials have heard from concerned parents, the university has increased patrols and expanded shuttle service. At Temple University in North Philadelphia, where administrators also have beefed up safety protocols, some parents hired their own security to patrol off-campus areas after a student was shot and killed during an apparent carjacking in November 2021. That incident and other shootings and robberies have at least in part contributed to a drop in enrollment there, university officials have said.

At St. Joe’s, a parent confirmed he transferred his freshman daughter to another college this semester because of safety concerns.

“Whatever it takes to ensure the safety of these students needs to be done,” said another St. Joe’s parent, who asked not to be named to protect her child, a senior there. “What has worked in the past is not working now.”

She said parents have requested a Zoom meeting with McConnell but she has not granted it.

St. Joe’s enrolls 4,221 undergraduate and graduate students on its main campus at Hawk Hill, while its campus in University City — a result of its merger with the former University of the Sciences — brings total enrollment to 7,863. McBride’s shooting, the home invasions, and the assaults of the rowing team members occurred off campus in Philadelphia near Hawk Hill. According to a university spokesperson, the university has issued only one alert in the last year — for accidental discharge of a gun in a Wendy’s parking lot — for the Lower Merion side. Lower Merion police did not return calls requesting statistics.

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Aggravated assaults with and without firearms in the surrounding Philadelphia blocks within a half-mile of St. Joe’s main campus have risen from pre-pandemic levels in 2017-19 to post-pandemic in 2020-22, statistics show. And the rate of increase in St. Joe’s vicinity was higher than in the overall city.

For instance, aggravated assaults with firearms rose 62% citywide during that time period but went up 107% around Hawk Hill. Aggravated assault with no firearms decreased citywide but rose by 28% around St. Joe’s. And residential burglaries fell 26% citywide but fell only 2% near the university.

As St. Joe’s started the new semester this week, officials vowed that the school would continue increased patrols 24 hours a day on main campus and in nearby off-campus areas affected by crime. That increased presence in December led to an arrest of one of the individuals involved in the attacks on the rowers, said Ross Radish, interim vice president of student life.

St. Joe’s is not adding personnel to its 57-member public safety squad but is increasing coverage through overtime, he said. Like Temple, St. Joe’s is paying city police to help provide additional coverage off campus.

Also, for the second consecutive semester, the school will offer classes in self-defense, safety audits of off-campus properties, and tips to properly secure houses. The university, too, will continue to offer transportation and escorts 24 hours a day to any student who wants them. Officers from Philadelphia and Lower Merion will be available to meet with students, and public safety officers will be stationed outside dining halls and other public areas to answer students’ questions.

On a Facebook page for St. Joe’s parents, some criticized the university for failing to provide enough security.

“At the very least, security should be present at every entrance to campus,” one parent wrote. “Double it. Triple it. I don’t care what it costs. If the students aren’t safe, literally nothing else matters — not academics, not spiritual life, not athletics, nothing.”

A parent suggested the university should consider an armed police force, which McBride, the student who was shot, also supported.

Unlike Temple, Drexel, and the University of Pennsylvania, which have police forces, St. Joseph’s safety officers do not carry guns, and Radish said the university is not considering converting to a police force.

McBride said a student who was a victim of the home invasion tried to call for help on one of the university’s blue phones, which connect to public safety, but it wasn’t working.

“That was very startling to us,” he said.

Radish acknowledged the nonworking phone and said that the school routinely checks its more than 200 blue-light phones on the Hawk Hill campus to make sure they are functioning.

St. Joe’s has 700 cameras there as well — which Radish called a sufficient amount, despite concerns — and the school recently received a state grant to conduct a campus lighting survey this spring, which could lead to upgrades.

Senior David Knapp, 21, a member of the rowing team, was assaulted outside the campus gates by two young males at 4:15 p.m. during finals week. Dressed in a suit and bow tie, he was on his way to church. The night before, a fellow rowing team member was assaulted a couple of blocks away.

Knapp, of Virginia, said he suffered some bruises on his face and a bloody nose. It left him more wary about safety, he said, and his teammates have been more vigilant about not walking alone.

While Knapp was pleased with the increase in security and transportation efforts and the support he received from the university in the aftermath of his assault, McBride expected more from the school than the counseling and class changes offered him.

He sought legal and financial assistance from the university when his landlord wouldn’t let him and his roommates break their lease.

“I got nowhere,” he said.

Finally, a friend of his started a GoFundMe and raised $20,000, a large portion of which he and his roommates used to get out of the lease, he said.

While he believes St. Joe’s should dedicate more resources to public safety, he said strengthening gun laws and helping underserved neighborhoods are necessary to solve the violence problem.

In the meantime, he’s still happy with his choice to attend St. Joe’s, where he’s scheduled to graduate in the spring.

“Because I love St. Joe’s so much, I want them to create a safer place for students,” said McBride, a double major in business analytics and marketing. “It just worries me with the increasing crime around campus, that next time, the bullet won’t be in someone’s leg.”