The University of Toledo police have a long-standing history of committing crimes against students. Their most infamous act was when on-duty police officer Jeffrey Hodge kidnapped Nursing School sophomore Melissa Herstrum and took her behind a building on campus. After undressing her, he pumped fourteen bullets into her head, back, legs, and buttocks. A shot to her head was fired at point blank range. Just one week before this murder, Jeffrey Hodge pumped several shots into a sleeping female student's dorm room, narrowly missing her by several inches. He also set several fires on campus, made bomb threats, and
harassed female students in several situations.
Because the University of Toledo administration knew of Hodge's behavior, but took no action, they were forced to pay Melissa Herstrum's family one million dollars in a settlement.
Although it's been over a decade since Jeffrey Hodge carried out this grizzly murder, it has not stopped the UT police from committing a rampage of crimes against students. Just some of their indiscretions include a nine-year veteran of the UT police who was convicted of selling crack cocaine (Toledo Blade, 5/23/96), a UT officer who was cited for failing to stop at an intersection and plowing into another vehicle (Toledo Blade, 4/23/97), and wrong-doing which motivated UT faculty to write an open letter requesting an investigation into police violence against students on campus (Independent Collegian, 1/25/01). Most recently, a University of Toledo police officer was disciplined and suspended for using excessive use of force (Toledo Blade, 6/19/04).
I have attended several institutions of higher
learning and would rank the University of Toledo as
the absolute worst. I enrolled at the University of
Toledo to complete my professional license
requirements and was horrified at what I experienced. The bureaucracy is rude, dishonest, and dehumanizing. They are as corrupt as any UT police officer and just as prone to treat someone with disrespect. They cannot be trusted with anything. Professors are frequently late for class and the quality of classroom instruction is poor. Professors are uninspired, arrogant, and unresponsive to student needs.
The University of Toledo police have as poor a record of preventing crime as their record is of committing it. Break-ins, sexual assaults, and auto theft are frequent occurrences on campus. In Parks Tower dormitory, for example, 27 dorm room keys were stolen over spring break, resulting in $35,000 in losses from students' rooms. The University of Toledo police have no suspects, though they reported keeping a police presence within the building when the crimes occurred.
Like many universities, the University of Toledo has
virtually no adjoining campus business district. The
campus is scenic, but it's surrounded by fast-moving, busy urban streets. Slums adjoin the separate sections of campus which are located miles apart within the city. International students are forced to live in ghettos and commute long distances over bumpy roads to reach campus. Some are forced to ride in dilapidated UT buses which are unsafe.
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