There has been a  recent rise of  fentanyl, a lethal illegal drug, lining the streets of Grand Junction. This, in addition to  Grand Junction’s high amount of crime, students of Colorado Mesa University (CMU) are affected by the happenings off-campus.

Currently, the emergency text alert system notifies students when a transgression is occurring on campus. It goes off when a threat to student wellbeing, such as a trespasser, is on campus.

It is rarely used, which seems like a good thing and all students are required to join the alert system when attending CMU.

Within my one year here, it has gone off once, to warn students that police were chasing a suspect around campus. We had a lockdown that lasted 15 minutes and then received another text, saying it was over.

There is a lot of crime happening next to campus, so close that they are happening practically on campus. All the suspicious “adult gaming” places are suspected fronts for drug trafficking, including the one next to Taco Bell that showed up randomly last year. “The Fishin Hole” doesn’t sound sketchy at all…

Students should be alerted regarding off-campus threats for safety precautions. I do understand that not everyone will want to be constantly updated and it might even scare some people with the constant updates, it, people deserve to know what goes on around campus. The school is not separate from the town. Just because not all of us live here 100% of the year, it does not mean we are not community members.

We shop at Walmart, eat at Taco Bell and walk the streets of Grand Junction.

Just like other universities, we need to be updated about the happenings off campus and on campus equally.

So next time there’s rumors of gunshots, overdoses, and arrests, I hope to hear about it from CMU’s emergency text alert system and not the CMU parent Facebook group.