The campus police blotter, also known as the police crime log, is no longer available at Winston-Salem State. The blotter is a daily compilation of criminal activities that occur on campus.
By federal law, the campus police blotter is public record, and is supposed to accessible to the campus community.
However, the WSSU campus police department has not updated the blotter since November 2008.
According to securityoncampus.org, one of the requirements under the Jeanne Clery Act is that each institution with a police or security department must have a public crime log. Institutions that fail to comply may be fined or lose eligibility to participate in federal student aid programs.
The News Argus published the blotter in spring 2008, but no new entries have been added to the blotter this semester.
Lt. Patrick Ansel, Crime Prevention Officer with the WSSU campus police said that he is in charge of the police blotter.
The News Argus attempted to obtain the information in the blotter three times; two e-mails were sent March 23 and March 26, and a letter was hand delivered to Lt. Ansel’s office on March 26. No one from the campus police department has responded to the requests made by the Argus.
The NC A&T student newspaper, “The Register” publishes a police blotter. Dexter Mullins, a print journalism major and the online editor for “The Register” said he can’t believe the WSSU crime log is not public.
“The crime log is public information,” Mullins said.
“There is no reason for you to have problems accessing that information. I go to our campus police station and look at the records and hand write what we need for the paper,” he continued. “I do not have any problems at all getting this information from our campus police department.”
During an interview in March, Ansel said that he knows other schools’ police blotters are public, but he said he can’t worry about what other schools are doing. He said his focus is WSSU.
He also said at that time, the University does not want to be responsible for releasing private information in the blotter that could potentially cause something to happen to the victims if they are identified.
“I don’t care what [North Carolina] A&T is doing,” Ansel said.
“I want to make sure that the information provided in the blotter complies with the North Carolina general statutes.”