I want to make an important clarification regarding your article of Oct. 31. College senior leadership was not informed until the afternoon of Oct. 27 of the assault reported on campus that morning. This is not acceptable. I have made it clear that never again is there to be such a time lag between the reporting of such an incident to police and my being notified, together with other college senior staff.

Events of the day were discussed with a reporter from La Voz. What unfortunately was not included in the article is the fact that college leaders were not made aware of the incident until hours after it was reported.

Once we had necessary information, we used multiple methods to notify students, faculty and staff of the incident, including the emergency text notification system with a link to additional detail, voicemails to all college telephones, a prominent front-page message on the website, and an announcement on MyPortal. We always work to improve our communication to the college community and will continue to do so.

As additional safety precautions, we ensured that police patrols of the campus were increased last Thursday and Friday. Hours of evening lighting were extended and will remain so permanently on the campus.

Sincerely,

Brian Murphy

President, De Anza College