After sending out an advisory last fall, Public Safety has again warned the St. Thomas community about solicitors. The warning is largely due to a man who has a history of harassing students by asking for money and other courtesies.

Public Safety Crime Prevention Sgt. Wells Farnham said the latest advisory was prompted by students’ recent encounters with this man, as well as two other reports of solicitors who accessed off-campus apartment complexes and asked for donations.

“We kind of lumped them together because it falls into the category of suspicious people coming up to you and asking you for something,” Farnham said.

Although Farnham doesn’t believe these instances put the student body at risk, he said students should know how to react if approached.

“It’s not as if there’s a rampant case of people flooding the campus and scamming people,” Farnham said. “But (one solicitor) does have a criminal history, which is why we want students to be judicious about interacting with him.”

Senior Joseph McCullough said he was approached by the man the Public Safety advisories were concerned with, and although the solicitor seemed “harmless,” he said that students should be prepared in case they encounter him.

“I am no social worker, and I know I can’t save him, but I am willing to be his friend and do my best to show him dignity and love,” McCullough said. “I don’t know if our paths will cross again, but if they do, I plan to proceed with caution and care.”

Farnham said students should know that there are plenty of legitimate charitable organizations to get involved with, so they shouldn’t feel obligated to help when approached on the streets.

“The fact of the matter is, people like (the one solicitor) know there are legitimate organizations to go to to service resources for them,” Farnham said.

While the university has a no-solicitation policy without explicit permission from campus life, Farnham said that many of these soliciting reports come from off-campus locations.

The two reports of solicitors in apartment complexes occurred on April 6 in buildings on Grand Avenue.

Farnham said one instance involved two unidentified female solicitors, while the other was two unidentified male solicitors. In both cases, the “late-teenagers” accessed locked apartment buildings and went door-to-door asking for donations to charitable causes.

Senior Grace Williams has experienced soliciting in off campus housing in past years, and she said it was an uncomfortable situation that students should should be prepared to face.

“After I told him I wasn’t interested, he continued to ask questions like, ‘what do you do?’ and, ‘are you married or do you live alone?’” Williams said, “Students have to be really careful, because Public Safety can only do so much.”

Public Safety encourages students to use its services if approached suspiciously on campus and call the St. Paul police if solicited off campus.

“It’s a college campus, and whether it’s people stealing bikes, laptops in the library or looking to prey on students with a very compelling story, it’s our job to continue to remind students to trust their instincts,” Farnham said. “When something seems fishy, let somebody know.”

Molly Sigler can be reached at sigl1215@stthomas.edu.