Petition started to bring back call boxes at UGA after deaths

By Andy Pierrotti

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    ATLANTA, Georgia (WANF) — University of Georgia (UGA) students, parents and supporters are wondering on social media why the campus doesn’t have blue light call boxes that allow people to request police with a single button.

UGA was actually one of the first universities in the country to install emergency call boxes in 1988, but the school removed them in 2004 to save money after their limited use.

According to a post on the UGA’s police department website, “In 1988 the University of Georgia became one of the first campuses in the nation to install emergency call boxes. As many as 28 call boxes were once spread across campus. At that time, emergency call boxes represented one of the best available options for people to communicate with police when in need of assistance …

“In early 2000, telephone systems began moving away from analog technology towards digital systems. In 2004, the University learned that the phone system infrastructure could no longer support analog technology used in the call boxes and that the call box system would cease to function without a costly digital upgrade.

“The University considered purchasing a new digital call box system at an estimated cost of several hundred thousand dollars. Before making that financial commitment, we researched call data on the analog system call boxes. Over an eight-year span, UGA Police received only seven calls from call boxes, none of which were of an emergency nature.”

Today, UGA urges students to use an app called “LiveSafe,” saying most people have access to cell phones at all times.

But some students and parents want the blue light call boxes returned. An online petition created hours after the student’s death demands “the lack of emergency blue lights has been an ongoing issue that can no longer be ignored.”

The petition was created by a UGA student, and almost 10,000 people had signed by mid-Friday afternoon.

On Wednesday, Feb. 21, a University of Georgia freshman died in the Brumby Hall dorm. His high school alma mater confirmed he died by suicide.

Then on Thursday, Feb. 22, a person called UGA police around noon after their friend didn’t return from a morning run at the school’s intramural fields. Police found Laken Hope Riley’s body in a wooded area behind Lake Herrick with “visible injuries,” and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Riley was an Augusta University student enrolled at the school’s College of Nursing campus in Athens.

Riley was a former UGA student who transferred after her spring 2023 semester to the nursing program. Foul play is suspected. Her death is the first homicide on campus in at least 20 years, police said. No arrests have yet been made, and the two deaths are not believed to be connected.

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