Last week, the El Camino Police Department published a crime report on crimes that took place on campus and in contingent areas around campus from 2011 to 2013, in accordance with federal law.

ECPD published the report Oct. 1, as the law requires it to do annually. What they didn’t publish is accurate crime statistics.

Instead of protecting the image of the college, what the college needs to do is let students and faculty be fully aware of the crimes that take place here.

But instead of going that route, they published numbers in their report that don’t match up with what the Union has published.

Last year, we covered a story about a football player being arrested on campus and charged with possession of firearms at a public institution. There’s a category on the crime report for that, but the report shows it never took place.

ECPD was the arresting agency, the player was put in their holding cell, and then transported to a local police station for booking. It took place on campus. But in the college’s eyes, it never happened.

The police department is proud of using the system Nixle, a service that sends out alerts via text message, but the EC website shows ECPD hasn’t sent out an advisory or alert since February.

They’ve used the system for three and a half years, according to the EC website. In those three and half years, they’ve sent seven advisories or alerts an average of one every six months.

Some would assume that means there hasn’t been a crime worthy of warning those on campus or in the community about in seven and a half months. Others would realize how unrealistic that is.

Weeks ago, a male entered a women’s restroom and attempted to photograph a woman there. That incident was reported in our paper two days after it happened. It took the college six days to send out an alert about it.

Students simply are not aware of the crimes that happen here. Unfortunately, there’s little effort being done to improve that awareness.

The morning after the new report was released last Wednesday, EC Police Chief Michael Trevis pointed out two mistakes. Two numbers were incorrect and were in the wrong categories. Those mistakes stayed on the online version of the report for several hours Thursday.

The report revised Thursday claims there was one robbery on campus in 2013. Not all crimes are reported, but on a campus with 20,000 students, it’s difficult to believe only one robbery was reported in an entire year.

Come on, EC. Let students know what they’re getting into when they choose to come here. Right now, prospective students think 23 of 29 major crimes didn’t happen once on campus in 2013. Three of those crimes that did happen were reported to have only happened once that year.

It’s not fair to students for our police department to publish inaccurate crime numbers and send out an alert every few months with total disregard to dozens of calls happening every semester.

In a world that’s pushing the mantra of being aware of your surroundings, the higher-ups must realize that’s no easy task when those same officials act like crimes don’t happen. They do. Talk about them, ECPD.