At 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Ohio University students received a crime-alert email about an armed robbery.
The robbery occurred about 7 p.m. Tuesday near Lincoln Hall. The victim reported it to university police at 7:43 p.m., according to that alert.
The assailant, wielding a knife, demanded money from the victim, who managed to get away unharmed.
It wasn’t until the next afternoon that students found out about the potential danger to their safety.
The robbery came less than a month after the entire campus was shut down after a woman was robbed of $5 at gunpoint near the Station Street apartments.
Was the gunman a bigger threat to students? Perhaps. It seems as though that was the university’s judgment.
But is 21 hours too long to wait to be notified about a potential threat on campus via email? Yes.
The email’s header states that it was “designed to notify members of the University community about a reported crime that may represent an ongoing threat to public safety.” But a 21-hour delay mitigates the effect of such a notice.
If the university takes student safety seriously, it should improve its emergency notice system so that it is actually useful. An email 21 hours after a dangerous situation is not.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
