Stephen Krewson | DPS needs to get their priorities straight

'Penn is an urban college campus, well-integrated into a vibrant University City community, which offers students, staff and faculty access to a wonderfully diverse cultural, arts and restaurant scene." Thus proclaims the Division of Public Safety's Web site.

If you're a student here, you probably read that sentence or a close variation of it at some point during the application-and-decision process. Sure, you thought to yourself, Penn's West Philadelphia campus might get a bad rap, but all that has changed.

It's a college town now with a new image and a new name: University City. A place filled with sunshine and smiles, where multicolored kids in multicolored Penn sweatshirts stroll down gentrified streets to al fresco classes.

I'm guessing you didn't expect the Penn experience to include being awoken at 2 a.m. by bullets and shrieking.

But that's exactly what happened to some students this past weekend when a gunman opened fire into a crowd outside the Koko Bongo nightclub on 38th and Chestnut.

Nursing sophomore Julia Borghi, who lives less than a block from Koko Bongo, heard approximately 10-15 shots reverberate down the alley outside her window. "The reason I knew they were gunshots," she said, "was that there were so many people screaming."

Why go out when you can get all the excitement you can handle in the comfort of your bedroom!

Each incident like this throws a wrench into the propaganda machine that is the University of Pennsylvania. Even though no students were injured - the suspect was killed and several bystanders, including a police officer, were wounded - such acts of violence cannot and must not be swept under the rug.

Calling Penn's campus "well-integrated" is a lie. Hundreds of students were out and about in Halloween costumes that night, blissfully ignorant of the melee taking place just two blocks north.

It is also deceptive to call University City "vibrant." What, may I ask, is so vibrant about death and violent crime? Perhaps the Democratic primary candidates could have addressed this question when they debated just six blocks away Tuesday night.

Don't get me wrong. I love Penn and I appreciate much of what Philadelphia has to offer. But the University needs to seriously rethink its priorities. Penn Police were out in force Saturday night, but they were concentrated around the center of campus and southward.

They were especially busy breaking up fraternity parties to deal with the twin monsters of underage drinking and excessive noise. To be fair, the response of Philly law enforcement to the shootings was prompt and well-prepared. Lieutenant Frank Vanore of the Philadelphia police explained that "there was a minor incident last week when [Koko Bongo] closed so the captain in that area put up a detail of around nine officers to be proactive."

There is nothing proactive at all about Penn's own Division of Public Safety. While the division's Vice President Maureen Rush confirmed that Penn Police and AlliedBarton responded to the scene, it seems to me that their focus on weekends needs to shift from fraternities and kegs to nightclubs and firearms. The latter is far more dangerous. If you think otherwise, you're fooling yourself.

Additionally, I find it outrageous that Penn has embarked on a leviathan eastward expansion when it cannot even secure its own periphery. Surely the fact that dozens of shots were fired into a crowd at 38th and Chestnut is a more pressing problem than, say, the expansion of the athletic fields or "connecting" with Center City.

I cannot help but wonder if the $3.5 billion Penn intends to raise would perhaps be better spent buying up ticking time bombs like Koko Bongo and turning them into flower beds. Object if you wish. Say that such a plan is unneighborly and heavy-handed. Say that it unfairly targets minorities and destroys pre-existing communities. But if Penn really means what it says about protecting its students, it needs to confront such threats.

This may sound extreme, but I lived at 39th and Ludlow this summer. I've walked past the people who cluster outside Koko Bongo at 2 a.m. and felt uneasy. Now I know why. No student should ever be woken by gunshots and screaming again.

Stephen Krewson is a College sophomore from Schenectady, NY. His e-mail is krewson@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Parthian Shot appears on Fridays.

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