Following a weekend of violence, Georgia State University is taking action to crack down on shootings and drag racing near campus.
Crowds gathered around the campus during the April 1 weekend, and things quickly escalated to violence. Several individuals jumped on a car and shots were fired. Seven people were arrested.
According to Fox 5 Atlanta, GSU Police Chief Anthony Coleman says they are going to increase their presence in the residential area this upcoming weekend, where most of the crime occurred.
“In my 31 years, there’s never been a weekend like this,” Chief Coleman said, per Fox 5 Atlanta.
“I want our students that are living on campus to just realize that if you bring an outside influence into Georgia State University, that doesn’t have any type of history with Georgia State University, they do not care about Georgia State University. So, I want our students to care about Georgia State University and think about the outside influences that they’re allowing to come onto the campus,” he added
Coleman explained that the first step was strengthening communication with non-university owned housing and nearby areas.
“There were some things that happened this past weekend where we felt like maybe, if we communicated, we could have stopped some things from happening. We could have shut some parties down before they got started,” Chief Coleman said.
“One of the biggest things some of these promoters were doing was saying, ‘OK, let’s meet at this parking lot here.’ So, we’ve reached out to some of those parking lots, and they were like, ‘No, you have full authority in this parking lot to shut it down,’” he added.
