This is not going to be an uplifting message. If you have not yet heard, a 21-year-old political science senior, Zachary Marco, was killed Sunday night after being unsuccessfully mugged near Rural Road and University Drive near the Tempe campus.
Unfortunately, this is a much-needed wake up call for the ASU community. We need to realize that this is the real world and we’re not invincible, nor are we always “safe” when we’re on or near campus. We don’t run the town we go to school in, and we certainly don’t live in a bubble.
ASU has its own police department that works diligently to deter crime and help city police increase their coverage, but society continues to breed terrible people who, unfortunately, are free to roam in proximity to our institute of higher education.
Too often, we feel that our campus is like a “home base” in tag, and that all people in Tempe abide by the same moral codes through the veil of being an ASU-affiliate or supporter.
ASU is what our lives revolve around; it isn’t our fault that we don’t take time to make the distinction. And we can’t pretend that we don’t get special treatment or a lot of great discounts and free food for being a college student. It can make anyone feel invincible or above the probability of falling victim to a malicious attack.
Even if the robbers weren’t aware that they were going to kill someone Sunday night, what is the world coming to where a few hundred dollars of personal possessions are worth someone else’s life?
This is uncomfortably reminiscent of 21-year-old Kyleigh Sousa’s death after being hospitalized for being dragged by muggers in a vehicle by the IHOP on Apache Boulevard.
Other recent deaths around campus include the body found inside a dumpster by the Tempe Jewish Center and the body found inside the closed Mexican food restaurant 3 Margaritas.
And we’re not alone. In September, Inside Higher Ed published the concerns of two universities, Seton Hall University and the University of Wisconsin-Stout, as they dealt with multiple student deaths, both malicious and accidental.
Don’t mistake college for another version of high school — although it’s tempting with the structure and grading curve in some of our classes — this overly friendly and safe environment can at times become just another maladjusted skin graft on the face of a cruel world.
Even if we don’t all live on campus property, most of us spend large portions of our days on one of our four physical campuses where we deserve to feel safe, but sometimes can’t.
While there’s no real preventive measures for crimes like the one that unnecessarily ended Zachary Marco’s life, we should consider this a wake-up call for our awareness of what exactly the real world is capable of.
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