“Don’t ask, don’t tell” seems to be El Camino’s way of thinking for the past year or two.

The most recent example of this played out earlier this week, after the police chief confirmed the victim of an alleged rape, which reportedly took place a few hundred feet away from campus, was a student at the college. But for three days in a row, the college’s PIO didn’t answer our requests for a comment.

Other big crimes that have happened on campus in the last year and a half include a star athlete getting arrested for having marijuana and loaded guns in his car, an alleged threatened mass killing and a shooting on campus. No notification was ever sent out by the college about the first incident, an email was sent out a month after the fact for the second incident, and notification for the shooting went out hours after it happened.

One vice president said at a campus forum earlier this semester that the delay in notification after the officer-involved on-campus incident was for “crowd control.” We’re just spitballing, but if we took a poll, the number of people claiming they’d run toward a shooting probably wouldn’t be too high.

So, we beg the question: Why not tell students, faculty and staff members are those in the community about crime? At least in a timely manner? Is it because it’s believed no news is good news? Or that those on campus and close by just aren’t aware?

People here aren’t lacking awareness. Crime happens everywhere. Why act like it wouldn’t happen to us?

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The college was aware enough of that to hold a sexual assault awareness workshop earlier this week, almost coincidentally days after one of our own students was allegedly raped blocks away.

A Nixle alert went out about the search for a rape suspect in Gardena last Friday, where the search involved bloodhounds scouring an EC parking lot, but it went out hours later. Some students received a Campus Advisory via an email hours after that.

At the same campus forum mentioned earlier, school officials encouraged people to sign up for Nixle. One faculty member spoke up and said even if 40,000 people in the community sign up for the alert system, it doesn’t help if alerts are being sent out much after the incident, especially when we’re getting news elsewhere.

Have a point person from the Community Relations Office or police department whose sole job is to send alerts. Have a better way of getting the word out about Nixle. Or come up with another way people can be informed. Have professors announce news in class or have a campus-wide PA system. Then, everyone will know right away.

Crimes happen here, but for far too long has El Camino’s way of dealing with them has been not saying anything. It’s not going unnoticed by students and those employed here. El Camino is ranked highly in many categories, but response time to crimes probably isn’t one of them.

Editor’s note: The headline has been changed for clarity.