SRJC student Oswaldo Fajardo was stabbed around 9:30 p.m. Oct. 16 by the husband of another student while they were talking after class in the parking lot of the Southwest Center, an SRJC satellite campus.

The suspect, Miguel Garcia-Asencio of Santa Rosa, was arrested that night, charged with attempted homicide and is currently in Sonoma County Jail being held with no bail due to an immigration hold. He is not a student himself.

“I know initially he was booked for attempted murder and an immigration hold, so he can’t get out, I would say in the short term I would not worry about this individual coming back out,” SRJC district Police Chief Matt McCaffrey said. “This wasn’t a random act; he had someone very specific in mind so we don’t see him as a threat to the student body.”

The satellite center offers a variety of mostly non-credit classes and primarily used by ESL (English as a second language) students who hope to eventually move on to credit classes.

SRJC Coordinator of Non-Credit Matriculation Hector Delgado explained the campus is utilized by multiple programs.

“In the evening we have normally six classes, Monday through Thursday and a few classes on weekends as well. The classes are mostly non-credit ESL (English as a second language), we have GED prep classes and we also have community education classes along with solar panel installation certificate classes,” Delgado said.

Delgado did not witness the incident or personally know any of the people involved, although he did confirm the victim and the suspects’ wife were students who were taking an ESL class. “I talked to a couple of people that I know who leave at around that time and they explained to me that they didn’t see anything,” Delgado said.

Fajardo is enrolled in the higher level ESL courses and was well liked at the center. Linda Hauser, a longtime SRJC ESL instructor teaches the class that the victim and suspects wife is in.

“Oswaldo is a good student; he takes course 716, a very high level, one of the students who would be headed to the main SRJC campus. The students were concerned about him so the first thing we did in the lab was look at the Press Democrat article from yesterday so they could read about what happened. I imagine we’ll do something for him when he comes back,” Hauser said.

“Oswaldo is friendly and joking all the time; he is a good person. I feel sad for Oswaldo because he’s always happy, smiling and always talking with everyone,” SRJC student Maggie Romo said.

Garcia-Asencio is not an SRJC student and is still in custody. He is expected to enter a plea on a charge of attempted homicide and an immigration charge Nov. 13 at Sonoma County Superior Court.

The official center parking lot is located on the north side of grounds and is clean and well lit with about 50 parking spaces. On the south side of the school there is a large parking lot nestled in between a vacant part of the school and an old soccer field, both of which are not technically part of the Southwest Center.

The south parking lot where the stabbing occurred is isolated and very dark at night.

“I’m scared of that parking lot because it’s very dark and it’s far from the other one,” Romo said.

Hauser said most people at the Center are aware that safety is a concern.

“At the beginning of the semester we tell people don’t ever walk across that yard to the south lot without going in a group or at least with one other person,” Hauser said.

The South lot does have some limited lighting but it is on the soccer field side and the majority of the lot after sunset is shrouded in darkness.

One possible challenge with improving the lighting is that even though students regularly use the south parking lot, it is technically not part of the Southwest Center, so facility improvements may fall into a grey area.

“I don’t like what happened at the Southwest Center and even though there was probably nothing we could have done to prevent it, I

want to make sure people feel safe out there and that they feel that they can call us for anything in the future. I’m going to talk to the facilities operations guy about the lighting,” McCaffrey said.

The Clery Act is a federal law that requires all colleges to follow certain protocol regarding crime on and around campus. Some requirements are an annual security report, public crime log, timely warnings about Clery Act crimes, emergency response notification, fire safety data and policies and procedures for missing students.

At the district police homepage on the SRJC website, there is an Emergency Text Alert System called ALERTU, which people can sign up for to receive the same notifications that all of the SRJC instructor computers on the school server receive in case of an emergency or immediate threat. “Our notification system is ALERTU.

I’m actually looking at a new method, a software system called Nixle, similar to ALERTU but much more user friendly. The downside of it is the same as ALERTU, its only as good as the number people signed up for it,” McCaffrey said.

For most incidents including the stabbing, recent car thefts and the sexual assault last semester, the crime alert flyers are used. Posted on the district website and around campus, flyers notify people about crimes on campus.

At the Southwest Center some students may be hesitant about reporting a crime because fear of their legal status.

“A lot of people who came to this facility are not even citizens, so they have a fear of being deported or being stopped or having their car taken away. The fact that there was a stabbing, people’s fear can intensify and these are things that me and you may not be able to understand because it doesn’t happen to us,” Delgado said.

The SRJC district police want to encourage more people to come forward if they are a victim, witness or just want to report any suspicious activity around campus.

“If you’re the victim of a crime, if you’re the witness to a crime, immigration status is not relevant, we don’t care, it doesn’t come up, it’s not an issue,” McCaffrey said.

Personal responsibility is the best course of action for protecting yourself from being the victim of a crime. People can sign up for ALERTU and take the time to read crime alert flyers as well as call campus police if they feel they are in danger.

“Be better safe than sorry, be the squeaky wheel, there’s no call too small, be aware of your surroundings and don’t be afraid to call us,” McCaffrey said.