Terrorists, bombs,and killing people in the name of Allah are just a few of the images that media outlets have portrayed people of the Islamic faith to be.

Sarah Sumayah Noor, a health administration major at the University of Memphis, explained the reality of her faith and what she has experienced while living in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Born in Bangladesh to a devout Muslim family, it was not uncommon for Noor to see women covering their heads in traditional hijabs or for her family to “help” her older sister find a husband or for people to make sacrifices in the name of Allah.

However, in America, not everyone Noor has interacted with is as comfortable as she is with these things, especially in Memphis, Tenn. She believes the biggest reason for the proverbial elephant in the room is due to ignorance.

“People do not take time and educate themselves about my religion,” Noor said. “When they see me and understand that I am just like them, that’s when they start to understand me more.”

She says that the misconception that all Muslims are terrorists or suicide bombers is the reason her parents did not want her to wear anything pertaining to her religion after 9/11.

By Leah Beth Bolton 

The University of Memphis is improving safety by installing more Code Blue phones around campus.

Bruce Harber, director of public safety and Police Services, said that the university has continued to add phones to decrease crime on campus and to ensure that students feel safe while commuting to and from school.

“When I came here from the Memphis Police Department, I thought if we had great crime numbers that are low, everything would be great, but that’s only half the battle,” Harber said. “The other part is making sure people feel safe, so the phones help with that.”

Harber added that there are currently 42 phones spread out across campus, but the school will continue to add them each year, as long as proper funding is provided.

“They are expensive. They run around $10,000 to $15,000 a piece,” he said.

By Leah Beth Bolton 

Students and residents who live in the surrounding areas of the University of Memphis are concerned about what warrants a Tiger Text.

The U of M's emergency alert text messaging system, which was put in place in 2007 following the Virginia Tech Massacre, is used to keep students abreast of their safety on campus. However, for many students, it’s been unclear exactly what Police Services deems as necessary to report.

“We tell parents and students, especially at orientation, that we don’t use Tiger Text for anything other than what we think is an ongoing threat to our campus community. That includes students, faculty and staff—not just students,” said Bruce Harber, the director of Public Safety and Police Services.

He added that many people want to use the system for news updates. 

“There’s a tendency for people to want us to use it as a news service,” Harber said. “If something is going on, they want to know about it, and that’s not what it’s designed for. We want to be very cautious when we use it. We don’t want to overuse it so it loses its impact.”

Harber explained that Police Services uses the Timely Warning of Reported Crimes policy. 

According to that policy, the U of M must report crimes to students when two conditions are met. First, the crime must be listed as “arson, aggravated assault, criminal homicide, robbery, sex offense, or any crime determined to be a hate crime is reported to the University Police (UMPD) or other campus security authorities.” Secondly, the crime must be considered “by the University to represent a continuing threat to students or employees.”

In the past, however, not all crimes have been reported to students, which has been a hot topic for the University’s newspaper.

In 2012, a registered sex offender was arrested for allegedly raping a woman on campus. The offense was not immediately entered into the campus’ incident log, which is required by the Clery Act, and students were not alerted until The Daily Helmsman reported on the crime.

Harber later responded to the incident, telling the Helmsman that it was not reported via Tiger Text because it was not viewed as an ongoing threat to the campus after his arrest.

Despite the University’s clear policies on when they will alert students with a text message, many students claim they would feel safer knowing about more crime.

U of M junior Josh Tucker, who lives a block from campus, said he's enrolled in the service and relies on it for his safety at home as well as on campus.

 "In a way, Tiger Text has helped me feel safer," Tucker said. "But a lot of time it just reminds me that I don't live in a safe area. However, it is a useful tool."

By Kirby Cheers

The next time you are on a campus tour at the University of Memphis, make sure to visit Smith Hall. After the tour guide showcases the exhibition dorm room, ask them to introduce the Assistant Area Coordinator (AAC) there. This may cause an eyebrow to raise, but the guides are more than accommodating. 

On the first floor in a small office hidden around the corner of the dormitory's desk and lounge area, sits Kanesha Johnson, the AAC for Rawls and Smith Halls—adjacent, all-women dormitories in the middle of campus off Patterson Street. Her credentials may not sound extraordinary, and when you meet her, she may not come off as important as one of the four candidates for university president.  

Nevertheless, she is an unsung, success story in Memphis. 

Johnson, 22, graduated from the university in the fall of 2013 with a B.A. in political science. She was the first in her family to graduate from college in addition to being the first in her maternal family to graduate from high school.  

A Raleigh-Egypt High School alumna, Johnson, was raised predominately in North Memphis, surrounded by poverty, drugs and gangs during her upbringing.  

"I grew up in a single parent home with my mom, brother and older brother," Johnson recalls. "The neighborhood was pretty rough. Frequently, there were gun shots and my mom did not allow me to go outside. My brother was also in a gang."  

Living in an unstable home and being engulfed by poverty and violence seemed normal to Johnson. However, what truly impacted her childhood was her mother's schizophrenia, something Johnson never understood, but could recognize the signs and symptoms.  

"I always knew something was wrong," Johnson said. "It wasn’t until I got older and went through counseling on my own that I knew that's what was going on with her. We tried to offer her help, but she would not accept it." 

By Leah Beth Bolton 

Ask any of the students at the University of Memphis who Bruce Harber is and they’re guaranteed to answer, but many have been unable to put a face to the name.

As Director of Police Services and Public Safety at the U of M, Harber is most known for his direct electronic contact with the student body, faculty and staff, whether it be for a safety concern or weather alert.

Harber’s responsibilities vary on campus, but he is widely known for being the “man behind the Tiger Texts,” the U of M’s emergency alert text messaging system, which he helped develop for the school in 2007.

His goal is to eliminate crime on campus and keep students up to date on safety. 

“Here on campus we’re down over 10 percent. Surrounding areas are down 4.8 percent. The entire area is down 13.7 percent as a whole,” Harber said.

He added that new research has shown crime in the school’s parking lots on vehicles has gone down almost 75 percent in his 14 years on campus, which he credits to more of a police presence.

“When you consider that we have 10,000 parking spaces, which turn over a time and a half a day, our officers have done a tremendous job of keeping our students safe,” Harber said.

Harber, who moved to Memphis in the ninth grade, had an interest in public safety early on. He joined the Memphis Police Department’s cadet program right out of high school, which led him to seek a degree in the subject. He continued with the part-time program for two years while seeking his degree at the U of M.

He graduated from college in 1991 with a Bachelor of Professional Studies in police administration.

Harber worked for the Memphis Police Department for 25 years before beginning his work at the University in 2000 as the assistant director of Police Services. In January 2002, he was appointed as the new director of Police Services.

On top of his responsibilities on campus, Harber is studying for his master’s degree, which he hopes to finish by the end of the year.

By Leah Beth Bolton 

TigerText, the University of Memphis’ emergency alert text messaging service, keeps students, faculty and staff informed and protected, but only if they’re signed up for the feature. 

According to the school’s website, “the optional service is used in the event of an on-campus emergency, an unscheduled university closing, or a delay or cancellation of classes due to, for instance, inclement weather.” 

The service is free to students but standard text messaging rates apply.

The text messaging system was put in place in 2007 shortly after the Virginia Tech massacre and the U of M campus began to focus more on student safety.

Bruce Harber, director of public safety and Police Services, is encouraging students to reactivate their TigerText accounts by signing up online for the service. He said students are unaware that their service deactivates after being enrolled for a certain amount of time. 

“The biggest challenge with TigerText is keeping people signing up,” Harber said. “What happens is the accounts expire, and we’ve never been close to the almost 20,000 licenses we had early on from the people we have on campus being signed up to receive the alerts.”

By Hassan Allawi

Crime has challenged the University District for a long time. The area outlined by Poplar Avenue from the north and Park Avenue from the south and Goodlett Street from the east and Greer Street from the west has witnessed an average of three robberies, 15 burglaries, and scores of other crimes each month since January.

By John Martin / MicroMemphis Reporter

There is a disturbing trend developing in the University District.

Pretending to be lawn crews, burglars are infiltrating neighborhoods in the University District, and residents are growing nervous.

The crews do light weed-whacking and lawn upkeep around houses while identifying access points within the house. By doing so, they become familiar with the residential home for a later burglary. 
 
Details about the scam, including the name the burglars use for their fake business, were not available, but their modus operandi is the same throughout each instance reported.

While it is hard to pin down specific numbers of burglaries that have happened directly as a result, it is certain that there is a new sense of caution when it comes to hiring yard crews and anyone looking for odd job work.

A car was totaled early on the morning of May 5 at the intersection of Highland Street and Southern Avenue when the vehicle got stuck on the tracks and then was hit by an oncoming train.

The car was owned by University of Memphis student Angela Clark, who said her car was totaled in the incident.

“I’ve already got my ticket. I just want to get my keys so I can go home,” Clark said.

Clark said she was driving through the intersection at about 2 a.m. that Sunday morning when her car tires got stuck on the railroad tracks.

“My car got stuck five minutes before the train came," Clark said.