While a bloody incident between two female freshmen roommates in Biever Hall last week hit especially close to home for Loyola, it’s just the latest event in a spate of violence thrusting its ugly head into campus dormitories across North America.

On Sept. 14, chemical biology freshman Rebecca Engel and management freshman Shannon English exchanged what Residential Life director Robert Reed said were “fighting words” before English ended up getting her head slammed into her closet door.

English needed two staples from the hospital to seal the wound on her forehead, and Engel was purportedly arrested before the matter was handed over to the Office of Student Affairs for disciplinary action.

The Biever incident happened one week after University of Arizona freshman Mia Henderson was stabbed to death in her dorm by her roommate after a fight broke out over what the New York Times called a “sketchy” motive.

On Sept. 9, almost five months after Cho Seung-Hui began a shooting spree in a dorm room and went on to kill 33 people on Virginia Tech’s surrounding campus, the Toronto Star reported that two sexual predators forced their way into two York University dormitory rooms in Toronto and raped the two women living in them.

Unfortunately, there’s little Captain Roger Pinac and other University Police officers say they can do other than react to incidents.

“If roommates suddenly get into a fight, how do we stop that? You have to be confident in knowing that we’re going to react.

“If there’s grounds for someone to be arrested, that’ll happen,” he said.

Someone called UP regarding the dispute at 11:36 a.m., and within four minutes, officers arrived on the scene and defused the situation.

“I don’t remember the last time we had someone hurt to that degree,” Pinac said. “It’s probably one of the most isolated incidents we’ve had.”

In the 27 years he’s been here, Reed has rarely seen a confrontation result in violence and an injury.

However, he pointed out a shortcoming with the security measures Res Life employs. Checking IDs at the front desk, staffing the front desk and locking the front door after a certain hour protect residents from the outside world’s dangers.

But other than having digital security cameras to “assess who’s coming and going” out of and into Biever, Buddig and Carrollton halls, and planning to install them in Cabra Hall, there’s not much protecting residents from each other.

“People that are here pretty much have free roam,” Reed said.

“Unfortunately, our security’s only as good as the students. People can piggyback in the front doors, be let in the front doors – there’s nothing that can be done to prevent that.”

Despite the trend, business junior Chris Burke and music industry studies sophomore Jason Price echo Pinac’s sentiments and feel safe on Loyola’s campus.

“I’m not worried about dorm violence,” Burke said. “This is the first incident like that that I have heard about at Loyola.”

Price added, “I have done more damage to myself than anyone has done to me on campus.”

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In Robert Reed’s opinion, incompatibility issues aren’t exclusive to placing roommates together in a dorm room.

They rear their ugly head in marriages and commonly dissolve them.

And because many people who end up living together at the end of the Res Life room placement process don’t usually share as strong a bond as one that would unite a couple in marriage, lifestyle problems often surface.

Especially among college students, who Reed said “generally don’t like to back down or walk away” from anything they’re challenged on as “a matter of honor,” situations can escalate.

The best thing to do, Reed said, is to establish guidelines and boundaries from the get-go. The worst thing to do is to quietly let those boundary lines get broken.

“Confront it when it happens. Don’t wait three weeks to say something about it,” he said.

And if the parties involved can’t resolve it by words, “They need to go to a (resident assistant) so we can facilitate a room change.”

In fact, English was at the end of a room switch process when the situation between her and Engel reached its boiling point.

Some people just can’t live with others, Reid added, and when that’s the case, Res Life tries to accommodate them in a single room “when it’s appropriate.”

UP Captain Roger Pinac, adjusting his pistol holster and smiling sadly, added, “Some people just don’t like each other.”

And if students ever feel threatened by their living situation, they should report it to someone in person or even by an anonymous phone call, he added.

That’s why the university provides student ministry, counseling, medical and police services. It’s also how communities can keep violence like the Biever Hall incident or momentous tragedies like the one on Virginia Tech from unfolding.

“It doesn’t have to be, ‘I saw them with a machine gun in their room and posters on the wall saying they’re going to wipe out the neighborhood,'” Pinac said.

“On the other hand, I’m not trying to say we’re Big Brother and trying to look over everybody’s shoulder. But if you truly feel concerned about something, I’d much rather tell somebody and have a clear conscience than to keep it to myself, have something happen and live with that the rest of my life.”

Ramon Antonio Vargas can be reached at [email protected]. Lee Hudson can be reached at [email protected].