Broadway residents live with tighter security

Confronted with a spate of break-ins, Broadway Housing Building residents are experiencing a series of temporary security reforms meant to limit nonresidents’ ability to access residential floors.

From March 25 to April 2, Portland State’s Campus Public Safety Office received three separate reports of an unknown male who broke into dorm rooms at the Broadway building at 625 SW Jackson St. These rooms were occupied by female students.

In response, CPSO has been working with PSU’s University Housing and Residence Life to increase security measures at Broadway, CPSO Chief Phil Zerzan said.

“We’ve changed how access is gained to the building—it’s now card-controlled, and we eliminated the ability to enter the building through an external staircase,” he said. “We’ve also made it so anyone coming in has to go through the main lobby, which puts them in front of a camera.”

Another visible change has been the removal of name tags from the doors of residents. The familiar decorations, which matched the themes of individual floors and were posted at the beginning of each term by resident assistants, have been removed to prevent nonresidents from identifying the gender of occupants.

The safety and security of students at PSU is a primary concern of the university, said Michele Toppe, the dean of student life.

“The safety and security of our students is and will continue to be my most important concern as dean of student life at Portland State,” she said. “At the very basic level, our students need to feel that they live and study in an environment that supports their learning and livelihood in all ways, and, as Maslow’s hierarchy suggests, personal safety is foundational to that.”

Communication with Broadway residents has intensified, Zerzan said.

“A timely warning was sent out to just the Broadway community after the third occurrence, and all Broadway residents were notified of the upcoming changes in security,” he said.

“We held a meeting with residence life last Wednesday [April 24] that all Broadway residents were invited to attend, and residents who had concerns were welcome to share them.”

The measures will help increase security at Broadway, Toppe said.

“I am confident that staff in [University] Housing and Residence Life, in partnership with folks from CPSO, facilities and offices like mine…are proactively working to develop strategies for preventing situations where student safety might be compromised,” she said.

Toppe also feels that the communication going on between CPSO, residence life and students is a vital part of increasing safety.

“I think being aware and informed is important,” she said. “I think students get busy with their lives and need to be given timely information in order to make good judgments for their own safety and the safety of others.”

CPSO Detective Matt Horton is actively investigating the case and said that it is unknown how the suspect gained access to Broadway.

“Whether or not the suspect is a student with access to the building or someone who gained unauthorized entry to the building is undetermined,” he said.

The suspect has been described as a white male, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8 with a medium build and a short haircut, although not much else about his appearance or identity is known, Horton said.

“[The residents seem to only] get brief glimpses of the suspect—he comes into the room and then slips away quickly,” Horton said.

The timely warning sent to the Broadway housing community by CPSO reminded students of measures they can take to promote their safety, including being aware of people in the hall, preventing unauthorized people “tailgating” students into the building and keeping doors closed and locked. CPSO asked that students call them at 503-725-4404 to report anyone in Broadway they believe is not authorized to be there, or any suspicious activity. 

Toppe also stressed the importance of being aware of your surroundings.

“We are also working to help our student community to see that they are important partners in developing and implementing safety strategies,” she said. “For example, we have identified a major problem in our residence halls [is] ‘tailgating,’ whereby individuals who do not have legitimate access to the residential building are allowed to enter a main door without an access badge by a person who has unlocked the door in front of them.”

While it might seem like a simple, polite action, something like that can decrease security for the entire building, Toppe said.

“This behavior, while perhaps seeming like the courteous thing to do, can threaten the safety of the residential community,” she said. “Encouraging folks to help us to ensure that only individuals with legitimate access to the building be allowed to enter is one way our whole community can work together to keep our spaces more safe.”

CPSO also advised residents who have concerns about this or any other related matter to contact PSU’s University Housing and Residence Life at 503-725-4370.

As always, anyone affected by these incidents is encouraged to seek support services available to them from the Women’s Resource Center and the Center for Student Health and Counseling.

Information and updates about these incidents will be available on CPSO’s website at pdx.edu/cpso. Students with nonemergency concerns regarding campus safety are advised to contact the Campus Public Safety Office at 503-725-4407.