Many students, faculty and staff received an e-mail last week warning about a man who police reports state has been charged with simple assault and stalking while at a public function on campus, despite a standing trespassing warning against him.
Samuel Ferebee, 62, of 130 E-8 S. Estes Drive was arrested on campus March 27 and charged with two counts of assault on a female and one count of misdemeanor stalking, police reports state. Ferebee already had a trespassing order against him, which prohibited him from attending anything other than public events on campus. The order was amended after the March 27 incident to prevent him from attending public events on campus as well.
But University police Maj. Jeff McCracken said chronic trespassing is not a significant threat to campus security. "This situation is the only time I can recall where someone has elected to come back on campus more than once even after they've been caught," he said.
McCracken said people on campus without an affiliation to the University are usually planning to commit theft, not violent crimes. He said University police issue trespassing warnings, valid for two years, to people who police find lack a compelling reason to be on campus.
Despite police attempts to maintain campus security, McCracken said the campus' open borders mean trespassing often goes unnoticed by authorities.
McCracken said the Department of Public Safety depends on the University community to recognize suspicious people on campus and alert the authorities.
McCracken said that in Ferebee's case, police first received complaints in 1999 and did not hear about him again until 2001, when he was arrested for trespassing. Ferebee then was arrested again March 27 -- his second arrest on UNC's campus. But McCracken said University officials decided not to issue a formal alert about Ferebee. The e-mail circulated throughout campus last week came from a non-police source.
In similar cases, a decision about whether to issue an alert is made by the Emergency Warning Committee, a group of University officials that convenes each time an incident occurs on campus, McCracken said.
The committee, which includes DPS Director Derek Poarch, UNC counsel and representatives from News Services and the Office of Student Affairs, analyzes each incident and determines what kind of warning should be issued, he said.
