K-State PD reminds Wildcat community of offered service to help you feel safe
MANHATTAN (KSNT) - With the school year well underway for college students, one university wants to remind its community about an available service to help keep people on campus safe.
Support Services Captain Andrew Moeller has been with the Kansas State Police Department for 20 years. Wildcat Walk has been a service provided for as long as he's been with the university. Eligible for students, faculty, staff and visitors, it provides either a security or police officer for those who feel unsafe on campus, and they will walk with you from point-a to point-b on campus and up to two blocks out of campus.
While this service has been provided for decades, and advertised yearly, an attack on a young woman off campus in late august called for concern within the k-state community.
"We started getting more calls asking what are some resources around campus that we can help ensure the safety of our students and community as a whole," Moeller said. "So, we took it upon ourselves to do a little bit more advertising than we had at the beginning of the semester just to let people know that K-State PD is here."
To use this service, people can either call K-State Police Dispatch at 785-532-6412, use the Rave Guardian app or find any of the blue light phones on campus. While this service can be used year round at any time of day, K-State PD finds that it's mostly used in the early hours of the morning.
And they want the community to know, no matter what time of day, it's never a bother.
"It's what we're here for," K-State PD Patrol Sergeant, Kyle Casey said. "And, usually at two, three in the morning, there's not a whole lot going on anyways. So, any excuse to get out of the car and walk with somebody is fine by us."
According to Moeller, the university is not seeing an increase in crime rates, but he told 27 News even though K-State is safe, doesn't mean people always feel safe.
"So, if we can help with that like offering services like Wildcat Walk, Rave Guardian app, all the blue light phones, we definitely want to do that," Moeller said.
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