Mayor Rhodes Conway –

A current UW student woke up in the early hours of August 17th to gunshots ringing out in front of her apartment on the 400 block of Gilman St. She was able to capture the terrifying photo posted below. As a result, on August 19th, the mother personally arranged a meeting on Gilman St. between Katie Crawley, Deputy Mayor, Office of the Mayor, Christina Olstad, Dean of Students, Officer Kraig Kalka, Madison Police, and Officer Diego Hernandez, Campus Police Liaison. Also, the mother engaged in many conversations with Alder Verveer, 4th District.   Officer Kalka confirmed an enormous increase in gang related crime in downtown Madison and next to campus. Gang members from Chicago, and Milwaukee have been caught with guns on and around State Street. This meeting revealed that there have been numerous incidents on or near campus and there is no interface between the University police and the Madison police. Also NO off campus alerts (OCA) UW-Madison Police Department go.wisc.ed/wisalerts were sent to any of our children.  Additionally, the meeting revealed that there is a street camera on Gilman (where significant activity happens), but was NOT WORKING!  (It is now, as of writing this plea and more cameras are planned.)

As of this Sunday (8/22), there was ANOTHER shooting on the 300 block of Gilman, this time a drive by.

As our kids begin their school year, the escalation of crime has started. 

We are a group of concerned parents regarding our students’ safety attending the University of Wisconsin in light of the growing gang activity occurring on campus and around off campus housing.  We demand the following action items be immediately executed:

1.       Establish an aggressive offense, close streets down and increase police presence. Make it difficult for these criminals to gain access our children and shoot weapons and deal drugs.

2.       Install more cameras/interface UW cameras and Madison Cameras.

3.       Establish lines of communication between campus police and Madison police.  This is critical as many of our students live off campus but live close in proximity to campus property.

4.       Notify all students, via an emergency message on their cell phones, when there is a gunman on campus, or in the case of the recent shooting on Gilman Street, near off campus housing.