it is a tragic update to a story this
nation's been following that's been
making headlines across the u.s.
police say an undocumented immigrant led
them to the body of Molly Tibbets 20
year old University of Iowa College
student disappeared July 18th after
going for an evening jog a lot of
parents of college students can
sympathize and empathize with this story
so let's talk about safety when you're
Koch out is away at school maybe they're
going away for the furry first time or
maybe they're there for a second third
semester you enough the police chief
Frank Mackesy joins us here on the
morning show you know kids when they go
off to college they don't want to listen
to mom and dad
but when it comes to their safety we
parents have to send a message that will
resonate and get through where do we
start well it's funny every time I
address every single new Parent
Orientation and the very first thing I
lead with is that we take the safety and
security of their students very serious
because we realize that they're
entrusting to us to them in their
absence as parents a lot of these young
people are away from home for the very
first time in their life and they have
the protective cocoon of mom and dad and
they don't think that the evil that
could be lurking right outside of that
door is there for them so we take a lot
of steps to try to educate the students
on common sensical things they can do
just to remain safe now fortunately UNF
is one of the safest campuses in the
State University system but we still try
to teach them a few tricks as to how to
keep themselves safe stay together in
groups if you're going to be out late at
night let a buddy know where you're
going use our new UNF safe osprey app
that will talk about that we just
implemented full force at the beginning
of the last term it has tools that
allows them to communicate with others
as they're walking you know we tell them
that we prefer if they're gonna run
around campus or they run in the areas
that are populated and maybe stay away
as much as possible from the nature
trails but if they are gonna go in the
nature trails you know run the different
trails don't have a set schedule or
someone can say hey at 10 o'clock this
morning I know somebody's gonna go run
and buy that no Molly she was living off
campus but apparently running along
which you know she should probably have
had
running partner and you know she said
she's gonna call police and then the man
claims that he blacked out but then you
know allegedly attacked her is there
anything that she could have done to
better protect yourself well I don't
really have I don't want to second guess
what the young lady did I mean no matter
what she may have been thinking if the
person she encountered had evil
intentions no matter what she did those
evil intentions are going to be carried
out but there's nothing call the police
because if something bad is going to
happen at least they're on the way
they'll know where you are but the other
thing is I don't want to blame the
victim because anybody should have the
freedom to go out dog in their
neighborhood you know but but the other
thing that's important here is though in
this day and time we need to take
precautions you can't be too careful let
me ask you about this that before we run
out of time because it actually allows
you know a friend a parent you know a
teacher or somebody to track you while
you're out there that's correct
it has several different functions that
it performs one of them is called mobile
blue light we have these blue light
telephones all around our campus that
you run by and push a button it calls
the police department automatically at
UNF PD we know exactly where the poles
located with near the location they have
one of them on their phone the other
thing that we have is it can call 9-1-1
if they want to or they can do the track
a friend and they can call a parent late
at night say I'm walking from the
library to my dorm room I'm a little
concerned and they can track them but at
the end of the day when all that said
and done all they have to do is call UNF
PD and we will escort them or give them
a ride anywhere they want on campus day
or night if they're uncomfortable and
you can get that app just through the
app store through the University if you
go to the Google Play for Android or the
Apple Store for Apple products it's free
just download it
Hey look better safe than sorry and Jen
you know we have kids and we know you
can't be too cautious overly cautious
these days when it comes to our kids
safety