Unfortunately, only a small handful of people know what truly happened to UB football player Scott Pettigrew early Sunday morning at The Northside bar on Main Street. The clarity with which a crowd around a university bar can recall such an event is dubious, as perhaps even the assailant and the victim were both in a state of questionable sobriety.
What formerly seemed to be a story that was carefully kept under wraps for the sake of salvaging a neat guise of off-campus safety has now turned out to be a goof within law enforcement reporting. As far as anyone can tell, police only mistakenly reported that the incident occurred on Bailey Avenue.
Granted, the incident did not surface within the media until late on Sunday night. Students, along with student media, scrambled for an informational foothold on the incident, and fabricated rumors, the most credible of which were taken at face value, established themselves in lieu of objective material.
Some claimed that Pettigrew accidentally knocked into the assailant, who compulsively stabbed him, while others said that Pettigrew had attempted to break up a fight, and the assault was an angry result of his attempt to mediate.
But stabbings do not usually haunt pacifists, and such random violence is unlikely – even in the University Heights, where similar incidents of assault and strong-arm robbery are familiar occurrences. A stab to the upper left chest suggests a motive to kill and it's rash to assume that such a reaction was unprovoked and carried out completely in cold blood.
As South Campus visitors and residents, all UB students should brush up on their street smarts. Know when it is important to abandon pride and walk away from a potentially lethal fight, and know how to avoid being the victim of a random violent crime.
Attempts to completely avoid weekend excursions into the Heights fall short of a realistic solution. Proposals for a North Campus bar scene, relaxed dry-dorm regulations, and non-alcohol-related on-campus activities are distractions that only shade the glaring problem of South Campus safety in naiveté.
As long as a lively weekend pulse exists among off-campus housing, students will take their chances and flock to the dark side of town to have a good time. Despite discrepancies between a questionably reliable police department and a news story that broke too late, the dangers of the 3100 block of Main Street will resurrect themselves come Thursday.
Crime in the University Heights area is a force to be respected and not confronted; crime-stopping is not the job of students and should be left to police officers. All students should learn to protect themselves, fight or flight, because violence is a factor amid the midnight streetlights.
But avoiding the Heights is almost not an option. In all its splendor and squalor, the popular weekend haunt is another unabashedly dangerous beauty to whose siren's song we are all continually allured.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
