Not the Bloomington I know

I’ve lived in Bloomington my entire life. I walked from Ballantine Hall to Sycamore Hall before I could tie my own shoes. I learned how to drive on the same one-way streets that never fail to cause trouble during move-in week. I knew what courses to order at Siam House before I knew what courses to take freshman year.

How this sounds to you probably depends on whether you’re an East Coast native charmed by Bloomington’s tree-lined streets or a weary townie disenchanted with the same old coffeehouses and public parks.

This place, this community, still hasn’t lost its magic for me. Maybe it’s because I’m still finding new nooks and crannies to explore. Maybe it’s because I feel some sort of comfort and ownership from recognizing faces downtown.

Whether this is the first fall you’ve spent in town or what you hope is your last, you know something for sure: Bloomington isn’t scary.

You might think it still isn’t. We obviously don’t know the crime of a big city. But something is going on. These past few weeks are starting to feel a little bit like the second season of “Twin Peaks.” Strange and disturbing things keep happening without warning — the kinds of things that don’t really mesh with the Bloomington I know.

Two reported hate crimes occurred early in October on campus. Swastikas were drawn on the dry-erase board of a Jewish student’s door in Briscoe Quad, and death threats were written on the dry-erase board of a lesbian student’s door in Foster Quad. The Chabad House has had two Hebrew characters stolen from its main sign.

There have already been several reported rapes and sexual assaults on campus this semester. Last Friday, the Monroe County Public Library was closed due to a bomb threat. Last Sunday, an armed man broke into a convenience store to steal cigarettes. Later that morning, a non-student fired a gun outside the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

The following day, a 60-year-old woman was shot in the leg while walking her dog. On Thursday, a different woman was robbed at gunpoint. And as most of you probably know by now, Adam Sarnecki, a 22-year-old Pizza X delivery driver and Bloomington native, was shot and killed early Friday morning.

These tragedies are distressing on their own terms. They become almost unbelievable when you realize they’ve all occurred within the last few weeks. As one of my friends asked, “When did Bloomington turn into Compton?”

These are the kinds of stories I rarely heard when I was younger. I’m sure I was too busy watching “Boy Meets World” and drinking chocolate milk to notice whatever horrors roamed the streets outside my window, but I can’t remember anything close to what’s going on right now.

By no means do I intend to idealize this city. Bloomington has known its fair share of crime in the past. I don’t think this is some sleepy town filled with nothing but good folks who’ve never seen tragedy. This is a real city.

There’s just a certain anxiety around town I haven’t felt here before. A few of my friends told me their parents were worried about them getting to and from work. Some wondered if this quasi-crime wave was over. At the time of this writing, 320 people voted in an IDS online poll asking, “Is Bloomington becoming more dangerous?” An overwhelming 80 percent answered yes.

At the opinion staff meeting Friday, we were trying to think of solutions or explanations for what’s going on. I thought maybe the planets had aligned themselves in a particularly malicious way. Someone else proposed a police state to get the situation under control. We turned to jokes because it’s hard to process so much crime happening over a short period of time in a city that doesn’t usually feel dangerous.

It’s somewhat relieving to consider the community’s response to a few of the incidents. Pizza X south is having a fundraiser for the Sarnecki family through Wednesday. The IU-Notify text alerts sent out after the shooting last Sunday morning might have been vague and alarming, but they effectively communicated the presence of a threat.

Bloomington isn’t suddenly America’s crime capital. This isn’t a disaster area. The world is still turning. Finals are approaching. The leaves have gone from gold to the ground. The last football game of the year is quickly approaching, and basketball season is already underway.

With these expected realities, it’s sometimes easy to forget the unexpected. The hollow advice to be careful is something we’ve heard from our parents since we were children, so I won’t offer it here. I’m not trying to put you on edge more than you already are.

Instead, take care and remember Bloomington isn’t just a peaceful paradise of studying and partying. Some of us know that all too well.

­— ptbeane@indiana.edu