By AMAL TLAIGE
Contributing Writer
Joseph Jackson, 20, a sophomore at University of Albany is now being called a hero for intervening in the attempted abduction of a State University of Albany international student.
“I’m not a hero. That’s what anyone should have done,” said Jackson, who is majoring in chemistry during his first semester at UAlbany.
On Friday Oct. 4, at 7:55 a.m., 54 year-old Anthony Collins attempted to abduct a University at Albany female student at the SUNY Albany bus stop on Western Ave. near Waterbury Hall. This is the first of two attempts that day. Collins placed a knife to the student’s back, when another student, Joseph Jackson, verbally intervened.
It was just like any other day for Jackson who was waiting at the UAlbany bus stop, when he noticed Collins who seemed out of place. “He didn’t fit in… he clearly had some mental issues,” said Jackson. He watched as Collins walked toward Ontario Street, “I also thought that was weird, because no buses go that way. That just… it bothered me.”
Jackson saw Collins leading a young girl with his hand to her back. “It looked like he was moving her at first…but then they came up to my right…and she looked over at me as they walked by. She gave me a look like ‘help me’ and I knew she was scared,” he said. That’s when Jackson noticed the metal knife Collins was holding to the student’s back. He then took matters into his own hands by calling out to the girl. “I was like ‘Are you okay? What’s going on? Are you okay?’” Both Collins and the woman turned around, and the woman started walking toward Jackson.
“He [Collins] just kind of blankly stared at me. I didn’t want to aggravate him. I didn’t want him to like, start slashing people. I had a one track mind: Get her out of there safely,” said Jackson. The female student moved toward Jackson, who helped usher her onto the bus. At this point Jackson lost sight of Collins. Jackson asked the girl if she was okay, and she said she was scared. The girl’s friends came over and Jackson let them take over as they comforted her. Jackson was in disbelief.
“I couldn’t believe what had just happened. The incident happened in like 15 seconds. So I was like ‘This didn’t happen, I had some weird dream’, but I knew it really did.”
After making it safely onto the bus, Jackson and the international student did not speak to each other about the incident, and did not call 911. At the time, he was in the process of emailing his residential director and knew she could be of help. He emailed her explaining the incident; she then contacted the University Police Department and Albany Police Department who requested to speak to him.
As previously reported from Channel 10, the second abduction occurred the same day around 8:30 a.m. The woman who Collins allegedly attempted to abduct was able to get away, but has not come forward. The victim from the first attempted abduction at the SUNY bus stop has come forward which allowed Collins to be charged with kidnapping.
On October 7th, Jackson gave the police his description of Collins which turned out to be inaccurate. “I gave my deposition and it was pretty awful. I said he was in a green and plaid jacket with white sweat pants and white shoes. But he was wearing black running pants with black shoes and a Christmas sweater.” Jackson filed his incident report and description of Collins. Due to the cities security cameras, the police were able to pull an image of Collins from the footage. The police administered Jackson a colored photo of who they thought the suspect was, he looked at the photos and confirmed the suspect to be Collins. Jackson filed criminal menacing charges and weapon charges against Collins, which caused police to keep Collins in custody. While in custody, he admitted it was him in the photo.
Aran Mull, Inspector of New York State University Police and University at Albany received the email about the attempted abduction and worked with Albany Crime Analysis to investigate the incident. Mull said UAlbany wanted to get a notice about the incident publicized, but at the time, Collins was not in police custody, and police feared that Collins would either run because he was afraid of being caught, or he would hurt others.
“We don’t want to announce to the world, or to him that we’re looking into this because we don’t want to poison the investigation,” said Mull. University Police Department flooded the area where the crime took place with plain clothes officers. “We wanted police in there, we wanted to make sure people were safe, but we didn’t want to make an announcement.”
Mull worked with the Albany Crime Analysis Center and reviewed all the footage to find out the details of the crime. At this point, the victim still had not come forward, so UAlbany sent out an email notice and canvassed the area with uniformed officers. Mull and UPD went in front of cameras to notify the media. An hour after they started airing, the victim who was held at knifepoint came forward and told police what happened. Mull said, “The first instance was a bona-fide kidnapping case…he took control of her. She was in fear for her life. He removed her from the location she was at.”
This incident raises the question of how safe the UAlbany campus is. “It’s just such a rare incident,” said Jackson.
Other UAlbany students are more shaken up about the crime.
“It’s made me consider commuting from home instead of living close to school,” said Alyssa Pyle, 22, a business major at UAlbany. She has lived in Albany for a year and is questioning the safety of the neighborhood she lives in.
“It definitely makes me uncomfortable, being a female and not feeling safe in my neighborhood,” she said. Growing up, Pyle has always been taught to never walk alone at night, but the fact that this occurred in the morning is quite unsettling for her. “The attempted kidnapping … is terrifying to me. That bus stop is about two blocks from my apartment, and it makes me wonder how safe my neighborhood is, when something like this takes place during broad daylight.”
Pyle said that before the incident occurred she generally felt safe, but the attempted abduction opened her eyes to the dangers of living closer to the downtown campus. While she receives emails from her school about crimes against students in the downtown area, Pyle believes law enforcement and school security should have been able to do something else to prevent the situation.
“I think it’s unfortunate that it took an attempted abduction at knife-point for the school to begin taking action to prevent and protect against downtown crimes,” she said. After the incident, Albany police and the University Albany police department are putting additional security at the UAlbany bus stop as well as around the UAlbany college campus.
Students at UAlbany were emailed about the incident, the email encouraged students to intervene if they saw a situation like this occur. “If not for another student intervention, the female student might have been abducted. I would rather have increased security on the school’s part than have to intervene in a violent crime,” said Pyle. She also said that the downtown campus is not as well supervised as the uptown campus and security at the downtown campus should be increased.
Other students at UAlbany generally feel safe. “Never felt unsafe, one reason being that SUNY bus stops almost always have multiple people there. You’re almost never alone, which is reassuring,” said Tyler Baron, 22, an English major at UAlbany. For a period of time Baron took the bus for two semesters twice a week. He especially feels safe because of campus security, “They do an excellent job of being very accessible and quickly responsive,” he said.
However, Mull states that kidnappings are very rare, particularly on the UAlbany campus. “We are in the city of Albany, an urban environment, however this campus is 9.7 times safer, so this campus is much safer than the average community.” Mull said that he does not see violent crime on campus often, and if he does, it’s usually larceny or domestic violence issues.
“24 hours a day, seven days a week we have police officers assigned down town,” said Mull. He also said that the security risks for downtown are higher than the security risks for uptown, but the safety level on downtown campus is the same safety level on the main campus. The issue is that once a person steps off the downtown campus, they are in the city of Albany. “The city of Albany is an urban environment, it has all the wonderful opportunities that an urban environment presents, it has all of the negatives that an urban environment presents,” said Mull.
When Mull and the Albany Crime Analysis Center reviewed the footage, they discovered that Jackson was not the only one to witness the incident. “There were a bunch of other people watching it as well. People had cell phones they didn’t call us. That’s disappointing.” The footage also showed one woman who saw Collins leading the international student. The woman walked across the street and turned around to watch, but did not take any action.
Jackson believes that the international student thought quickly and smartly in her situation. “She did the right think, she made eye contact, sometimes yelling out could aggravate him. Just try to get someone’s attention I guess.” As a bystander, Jackson recommends people to always be street smart, by staying observant.
“A bystander intervening is the most effective way to stop bad things from happening,” said Mull. A person is less likely to commit a crime if they know someone else is watching or willing to intervene. “I am very happy that Joe Jackson was willing to take a stand against it …I’m very hesitant as a police officer to recommend anyone put themselves physically in danger,” said Mull. However, he thinks Jackson made the right call in this situation. He did not go overboard when intervening and he did what was necessary to help the situation said Mull.
Bystander intervention does not mean someone has to physically get involved if a crime is occurring said Cindy Forte, Albany County RAD (Rape, Aggression, Defense) Coordinator. The course teaches students how to mentally and physically respond to assault scenarios. Bystander intervention can be verbal, and subtle. Forte uses party scenarios in her class and said that if a female friend appears to have had too many drinks and she’s talking to a male who is trying to get her alone, you can intervene by saying something such as “Hey, I have to work early and we really need to get going now,” said Forte. The goal in mind is, “separate her and leave.”
Calling the police is also a great way for someone to intervene, Mull said. Even if the witness does not completely know that a crime is occurring, it is better to be safe than sorry. “The police would much rather prefer getting a phone call that they don’t have to do anything with, but respond to,” said Mull. Police simply respond to the incident which is better than receiving a phone call after a crime has occurred. He insists to call so police can get to the scene before someone gets hurt.
Intervening in a crime is based on the bystanders comfort level. “That’s a personal decision to make,” said Steve Stella, Director of Department of Safety and Security at Saint Rose. Stella advises students to become familiar with what college security offers and use escort services to avoid assault scenarios.
Some dangerous situations are unavoidable and the key is to maintain awareness at all times, said Forte. “Pay attention to your instincts when something doesn’t feel right. Believe in yourself. Beyond that, we don’t want you to be afraid to go out, we want you aware and prepared.”
Mull suggests that one way to be prepared is to never allow someone to walk up behind you. If you find yourself in situation where someone is physically hurting you, use force to scare the offender away. “Everybody wants to say violence doesn’t solve anything, well no it actually does. Violence stops violence, it’s usually the only thing that will,” he said.
Thinking fast is also critical when put in dangerous situations. Inspector Mull used to teach the RAD program, and one of the terms he taught students was, “Fight, flight, or freeze.” Many people tend to freeze during dangerous scenarios. “They stop thinking, they can’t get past what’s happening to develop a response to what’s happening,” said Mull. He also told students, “The best place to be during an assault is not there.” If someone is held at knife point maybe the best answer is to run. “Don’t wait, or waste time. If someone grabs your purse…maybe the right answer is to not struggle with that purse, but let them take it.”
It flabbergasts Mull when people do not respond to crimes occurring right in front of them. “They probably lock up and can’t think of what to do,” he said. Mull advises his police to think through different shocking scenarios and how they would respond to it, so if it does occur they’re not mentally responding to it for the first time. Some other reasons why bystanders do not intervene may be because they do not want to get involved with the police, or they do not want to get hurt if they physically intervene.
The College of Saint Rose is offering a sociology course next semester and one component of the course is bystander intervention. “I talk about it because it links well with a famous case… the Kitty Genovese case, a woman who was stabbed to death in a Queen’s neighborhood in 1964. Many people heard the attack and nobody called the police,” said Stephanie Bennett, Associate Professor of Sociology. Bennett said this course ties well into the topics covered in sociology, and by focusing on bystander effects, it will provide students with skills that can empower them. A lesson that Bennett wants all students to take away from this course is that, “Everyone can make a difference, whether directly or indirectly,” she said.
Whether it’s speaking up for a stranger or calling the police, it is people working together that keep everyone safe. “Being a member of society means taking some steps to help that society maintain,” Mull said. “Morally, if you see another person in danger you can take reasonable steps to mitigate that danger. I think morally we’re all obligated to do something.”
