According to AL.com, a UAB student was carjacked on 15th Street S on Aug. 14. (Photo by Casey Marley)Casey Marley - Editor-in-Chiefeditor@insideuab.com
At 12:10 a.m. on Saturday, August 14, six blocks north of Rast and Blount Halls near the 1500 block of 15th Street South, two armed men carjacked a UAB student’s Honda Odyssey minivan.
After the car was stolen, the victim called the Birmingham Police. While giving the police a statement, the victim spotted his van driving away down the road. Subsequently, a police chase ensued, ending in a public housing community in southwest Birmingham. The Birmingham PD apprehended one of the men, 22-year old Courtney Lewis shortly after, but the armed accomplice to the carjacker ran away and remains at large, according to AL.com.
While the victim left the incident unharmed, the public was not notified of the incident until 5:12 a.m. when AL.com published a story about the early morning incident instead of a B-Alert message that usually instructs the UAB community to stay indoors or be on the look out for suspected criminals.
“The Birmingham Police responded to the off-campus 911 call and quickly apprehended the suspect following a vehicle pursuit and foot chase,” said UAB Police Chief Anthony Purcell. “When UABPD was made aware of the incident, the suspect [Lewis] was in custody.”
Chief Purcell told Kscope that since the Birmingham Police quickly apprehended the suspect, “[a] B-Alert would not be appropriate as there was no active threat to campus with the suspect already in custody.”
Still students that live near the UAB campus in the same neighborhood as the incident wish they could have been alerted of the carjacking. “I believe that UAB students should be notified every time there is criminal activity close to campus,” Colby Chapman, a sophomore said. “I just found out that a student was carjacked within walking distance to my house. That’s the kind of incident that I want to know about.”
However in a response to a question about the criteria of a B-Alert, Chief Purcell stands by the reasoning not to issue a B-Alert. “Sending a B-Alert remains limited to those incidents we believe pose an active threat on campus, and when sending an alert will not adversely affect our emergency response,” he said.
UAB’s B-Alert system has been under review since last October’s Parking Deck incident. Purcell said that they have improved the system’s processes by refining templates, training more staff to send alerts and addressing technical support with the vendor to create faster response times.
“Our goal is constant improvement, and we are excited about additional capabilities that will be added in the coming months [for example], an ‘easy button’ like the one used by Florida State,” he said.
