Josh Hawkins / UNLV Photographer
Students in UNLV’s Greenspun College of Urban Affairs take part in a simulation exercise in the interactive Urban Adventures course.
Thursday, April 4, 2019 | 2 a.m.
Under fluorescent lights, a group of about 20 people huddles at a table listening to the static of the police-dispatch call fill the room.
A panicked voice cuts through the audio, “I found my friend, he’s bleeding. I think he’s dead.”
The call is part of a simulation in the interactive Urban Adventures course at UNLV’s Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. There are about 70 students from all five disciplines — criminal justice, communications, public policy and leadership, social work and journalism — of the college enrolled in the course.
“There are certainly classes that are interdisciplinary,” said Joel Lieberman, chair of the criminal justice department. “[But] not at this scale ... this is combining five very different areas.”
Take one crime scene, where students found a deceased woman in the car who they learn may have been the victim of domestic abuse. That led students to the apartment of the woman’s boyfriend, who was still alive. Students investigated domestic violence.
Nearly 100 people — professors, staff members and community experts — helped craft the course material, Lieberman said. The voice in the audio, victim and others are portrayed by actors.
“We believe in the integration of disciplines and ideas to solve urban and community issues,” said Robert R. Ulmer, dean of the UNLV Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. “This course brings all of the [departments] together — it’s about solving crimes, it’s about communicating effectively, it’s about engaging in effective leadership, it’s about handling trauma and having empathy for victims, and it’s about dealing with the media in an ethical and honest way.”
Each of the crime scenes focuses on issues that impact Las Vegas, including homeless youth, domestic violence and addiction. The final crime scene depicted the same body that the students heard about through the dispatch call. The deceased man was believed to be a homeless youth, who was found with drug paraphernalia near him.
Former Metro Police Sgt. Jim Young, who spent nearly 30 years in local law enforcement, helped students navigate the crime scene. He gave pointers to the students on what to look for to solve the crime.
“It gives everyone, regardless of their discipline — social work, journalism or whatever — a realistic understanding of what police work entails, and how complex and difficult actual violent cases are. It also helps them think about social issues,” Young said. “A lot of underlying factors in crime and violent crime are related to [these] social issues.”
One goal of the course, which started in January and ends with a mock trial in May, is for students who are focused on their specific discipline to learn some of the basics of another. They also learn how to interact with one another in the field.
Student Alisha Bleakley, who served as a public information officer during the simulation, saw how to interact with victims and witnesses of a crime. She also was able to interact with mock reporters, her colleagues from the Greenspun school.
“It’s been really engaging, and I feel like [the students] all gained a lot of respect for the different fields,” Bleakley, 34, said. “I would never have retained this information from a book. I would skim through and maybe memorize answers for a test.”
