Have you ever had a situation, person, or experience change your life? This is my personal journey from tragedy to change.
For me, it was a stranger, a beautiful soul I never had the opportunity to meet. Haruka Weiser, she was my son’s classmate, freshman year at the University of Texas at Austin. Her senseless, brutal rape and murder was the day our lives changed forever. The morning of April 5, 2016 was a sunny beautiful Spring Day in central Texas. I was busy at work and my phone rang. It was my son calling, this was odd because like most young people he texts me and he should have been in class or at least almost there. In a serious tone he asked me to search, “What is happening on the University of Texas campus?”. I started searching and asked him why, he said, "I'm on my way to class and there are police everywhere". After a quick search I did not find anything. Nothing. He told me he would go into the theatre building and let me know what he found out. A couple hours later he called again, he said his professors had told all the students to leave and come back that evening. He did, and when he returned, he and everyone else in the theatre department were told that their classmate Haruka Weiser had been killed. She had been reported missing as she left the same building they were now meeting in and had never returned to her dorm. This explained the large police presence earlier in the day. What my son had seen was first responders recovering her body from the creek behind the University Alumni Center. His classmate had left at 9:30 pm to walk back to her dorm and on her way home she was brutally raped and murdered. Her body had been hidden in the creek.
It shook us to our core. Our family and the entire community of UT parents that had been discussing concerns about crime and safety would never be the same again. The most important aspect of a campus tour was overlooked. It never entered our mind to research, understand, and make ourselves aware of campus and community safety until this tragic event. Will your student have an experience like this? Will they be a victim of crime, sexual assault, or be directly impacted by crime themselves? Will it directly impact someone they know? It is sadly a possibility, but a violent murder like Haruka’s is not common and that is why it was so shocking, heartbreaking, and the impact so substantial. It is truly something I will never forget. That is what called me to get involved, learn about campus safety, crime prevention, and university and city public safety resources. That is when I learned the importance of navigating personal responsibility related to safety, security, and the incredibly important relationship between a university and the community.
Safeguard Strategy Crime Prevention Consultants is a call-to-action response to tragedy. A call-to-action, for change and a commitment to be an active participant in the communities we serve. Thank you for joining us!
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