Crime Fighters analyzes police calls to college neighborhoods

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is home to over a dozen colleges and universities, each of them in different areas of town.

Using the online resource and crime tracker Raids Online, data were collected for the entire month of April to determine which college neighborhoods received the most police calls for service. 

The data collected included calls made within a 2-mile radius of each campus address.

The three college neighborhoods with the highest number of calls were St. Philip's College, on Martin Luther King Drive; Our Lady of the Lake University on the city's West Side; and San Antonio College in the 1300 block of San Pedro Avenue.

The area around St. Philip's College, which is part of Alamo Colleges, saw a total of 191 police calls in April for things like theft and burglary, among others. 

Leo Zuniga, associate vice chancellor of communications for Alamo Colleges, said the school makes every effort to ensure students safety.

"We have preventative measures such as good lighting, emergency phones in the parking lots, patrol units, things of that nature to make students more safe," Zuniga said.

Our Lady of the Lake University, in the 400 block of Southwest 24th Street, also saw a high number of calls for theft and aggravated assault, among other calls. 

A total of 209 calls were made to the area last month, but students said they still feel safe on campus.

"I feel safe on campus, for the most part," said Julie Perales, a senior at OLLU. "I feel safe running at night on the track because there are lights, and walking around."

The college area with the highest number of calls is the oldest public two-year college in Texas, San Antonio College. The neighborhood surrounding the school received 342 calls last month for various crimes.

Part of the reason for that, Zuniga said, is the high amount of pedestrian traffic in that particular area.     

"We're also surrounded by developments in the area, like nightclubs, transient centers, homeless shelters, convenience stores," Zuniga said. "All of those tend to have more property crimes, than other areas of town."

It's important to note the data collected include calls for service to local law enforcement, and not the actual crimes committed.

Other schools analyzed were St. Mary's University, Trinity University, The University of the Incarnate Word and The University of Texas-San Antonio, (which tied with Northwest Vista College for the amount of calls received) Palo Alto College and Texas A&M-San Antonio.