Yale University’s police union has sparked outrage by giving hundreds of incoming students ominous “survival guide” flyers branded with the Grim Reaper — warning them about “shockingly high” crime around the Ivy League campus.
The bold flyers, which were doled out to first-year students this week as they moved into their New Haven, Connecticut dorms, are nearly identical to the controversial “Welcome to Fear City” notices distributed to tourists in a crime-ridden Big Apple in the 1970s.
“Good luck,” the Yale flyer warned, alongside an image of a skulled Grim Reaper also used in the notorious New York pamphlets.
“The incidence of crime and violence in New Haven is shockingly high, and it is getting worse,” the Yale police union handout warned.
“During the seven-month period ending in July 23, 2023, murders have doubled, burglaries are up 33% and motor vehicle thefts are up 56%.”
“Nevertheless, some Yalies do manage to survive New Haven and even retain their person property,” it said ominously.
It then listed guidelines “prepared by the Yale Police Benevolent Association to help you enjoy your stay at Yale in comfort and safety.”
Among the list of public safety tips were to remain off the streets after 8 p.m., to not walk alone, to avoid public transport, and to stay on campus.
Despite the crime stats being accurate, New Haven and Yale officials were quick to slam the union’s flyer — arguing the pamphlets were “misleading” and only distributed to deliberately stoke fear and public safety concerns among new students and their parents.
“This weekend, the Yale Police Union, which is currently in contract negotiations with the university, handed out misleading pamphlets to Yale students as they moved into their residential colleges,” the school said in a Monday statement.
“These pamphlets included disturbing and inflammatory rhetoric about the safety of Yale’s campus and its home city of New Haven, aimed at creating fear among new students and their families.”
New Haven Board of Police Commissioner Mike Lawlor said the flyers were a copycat of those dished out to New York City tourists back in 1975 that warned them to stay off the streets after dark and not to stray from Manhattan.
Those 70s pamphlets said: “The best advice we can give you is this: Until things change, stay away from New York City if you possibly can.”
The New Haven top cop noted the NYC flyers were widely condemned at the time, too.
“This is one of the most important days in a person’s life, in a child or parent. And to be confronted with this inflammatory and false flyer is in fact an outrage,” Lawlor said.
The union only doled out the flyers as a contract negotiation tactic, Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell claimed.
“We do not support this and, to be quite frank, I’m really disgusted that they have chosen to take this path,” he said.
The police union’s spokesperson, Andrew Matthews, hit back — telling Fox61 that there was “no dispute on the facts.”
“So, I think they feel an obligation to make sure that students don’t fall victim to crimes while they’re attending Yale University,” Matthews said.
“They have motor vehicles chasing each other down the streets of New Haven shooting at one another. If you or your children were to go to Yale, wouldn’t you want to know that?”
