Butler community responds to BUPD campus safety tweet

Collegian file photo. 

MARISA MILLER | MANAGING EDITOR | mnmille1@butler.edu

The Butler University Police Department sent out a tweet late Oct. 1, that created concern throughout the Butler community.

BUPD responded to an incident on Oct. 1 when a student reported a car slowly driving by while she was walking to her sorority house. The car turned out to be an UberEats delivery driver.

BUPD posted a tweet about the incident with an attached photo stating, “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

BUPD Chief John Conley said the late shift sergeant’s intention with the tweet was not to be negative, but to update students of the event.

“The intention there was to get something for somebody to stop and look at it,” Conley said. “[With] the term ‘Keep Calm and Carry On,’ all he meant by that was carry on doing what you are doing. If you see something, call us. You call people, we respond, we stop people and check them out. So it wasn’t meant in a belittling way or to be insensitive.”

The attached photo was added to the tweet so that students would be more apt to see the information within the tweet, Conley said.

“It’s frustrating because I understand the issues that students are having over suspicious people,” Conley said. “We’ve been trying to address it and trying to figure out ways to communicate information out and get it out, so that the students aren’t left in the dark as to what is going on.”

Conley said communication has been something BUPD is continuing to work on. In a recent town hall meeting hosted by the Student Government Association, Conley said BUPD would try to be more active on social media in order to keep students informed.

BUPD also responded to their own tweet late in the afternoon of Oct. 2 in response to student concerns regarding the post.

Students and parents were quick to respond on the night of Oct. 1 and throughout the day on Oct. 2, mostly through quoting BUPD’s original tweet.

Digital managing editor Zach Horrall also contributed to this story. 

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