Campus Alert Archive
Xavier

An XU Alert That Never Came: Why Xavier Stayed Silent After a Fatal Brewster Avenue Shooting

OHshootingadvisoryhigh confidence
Confirmed Threat

At 7:33 p.m. EDT on Friday, September 26, 2025, the Cincinnati Police Department received a 911 call from a Xavier University off-campus student reporting gunshots near the intersection of Montgomery Road and Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati's Evanston neighborhood — directly adjacent to Xavier's main campus. 25-year-old Jawan Tyree Bates was shot and later died of his injuries. Xavier University Police assisted CPD on scene with shell-casing collection, but the university did not push an XU Alert Me notification — a decision Director of Public Safety Aaron Jones publicly defended in the days that followed.

Alerts
1
Response
—
Killed
1
Injured
0
Institution
Xavier University
Private R2 · OH
~5,600 studentsRaveXU Alert Me
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

1 message in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

FOLLOW-UPWebsite
Verified verbatimXavier Newswire quote from Director of Public Safety and Police Chief Aaron Jones explaining the decision not to issue an XU Alert Me notification144 chars
I don't want to send out an emergency message and alert people and get folks nervous or up their anxiety unless there's truly a reason to do so.
This is not an alert message but a quoted explanation of an alert that never was — included because the conspicuous absence of a Xavier-issued alert is the actual case-defining communication event
Jones's framing prioritizes preventing student anxiety over offering students the choice of whether to be anxious — a posture that the Xavier Newswire investigation directly questioned
Brewster Avenue is a primary off-campus residential corridor for Xavier juniors and seniors who exercise the option to move off-campus — the very population most likely to walk past the shooting scene unaware
Context

Background

Xavier University is a private Jesuit R2 doctoral institution in Cincinnati's Evanston neighborhood with approximately 5,600 students. Brewster Avenue runs along the eastern edge of Xavier's main residential corridor, with junior and senior off-campus housing concentrated on the side streets between Brewster and Montgomery Road. On Friday, September 26, 2025, at 7:33 p.m. EDT, CPD received a 911 call from a Xavier off-campus student reporting gunshots at the Montgomery/Brewster intersection. 25-year-old Jawan Tyree Bates was struck and would later die of his injuries. Xavier University Police assisted on scene with shell-casing collection. Xavier did not, however, push an XU Alert Me notification to the campus community — a decision that, when scrutinized in the October 14 Xavier Newswire follow-up, Xavier's Director of Public Safety and Police Chief Aaron Jones defended on the grounds that the XU Alert Me system 'is used for threats to campus' and that he did not want to 'get folks nervous or up their anxiety unless there's truly a reason to do so.' This case is included not because Xavier issued an alert, but because the explicit decision not to issue one — at the same moment when an off-campus Xavier student was on the phone with 911 — is itself a documented institutional communications decision worth preserving alongside the alerts that universities did send. The September 26, 2025 shooting was the second fatal Brewster-corridor shooting near Xavier in two years (the February 13, 2024 Listermann Brewing shooting is separately documented in this archive).
Analysis

Key Findings

Xavier did not issue an XU Alert Me notification despite a fatal shooting on the immediate edge of campus and despite the original 911 call coming from a Xavier off-campus student — a decision explicitly defended by Director of Public Safety Aaron Jones
The chief's published rationale ('I don't want to up their anxiety unless there's truly a reason to do so') is a documented departure from the broader peer-institution trend of erring toward over-notification on patrol-zone violence
Brewster Avenue is a primary off-campus residential corridor for Xavier juniors and seniors — the very population most likely to be walking past the incident in the late-evening hours without alert-system context
The Brewster shooting and the February 13, 2024 Listermann Brewing shooting both occurred within blocks of the same junior/senior residential streets, raising compounding questions about whether Xavier's threshold for XU Alert Me activation is calibrated to its actual off-campus footprint
Outcome
Bates died of his gunshot wounds. CPD arrested a suspect in the days following the shooting. The most enduring institutional consequence was a [Xavier Newswire investigation into XU Alert Me decisions](https://xaviernewswire.com/2025/10/14/brewster-avenue-shooting-sparks-concern-of-campus-security/) that pressed Xavier on when an off-campus shooting near junior/senior residential streets justifies a campus-wide notification.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Student Paper
    Brewster Avenue Shooting Sparks Concern of Campus Security (Xavier Newswire)
    xaviernewswire.com
  2. News
    CPD investigates shooting in Evanston near Xavier University (WCPO)
    wcpo.com
  3. News
    25-year-old dies after Evanston shooting near Xavier University, police say (Yahoo / WLWT)
    yahoo.com
  4. News
    CPD: 1 man dead after shooting near Xavier University (NewsBreak)
    newsbreak.com
  5. Official
    Active Shooter / Hostile Intruder (Xavier Emergency Management)
    xavier.edu
Tags
shootingoff-campusalert-not-issuedohioprivate-r2xavier-cincinnatibig-eastevanstonbrewster-avenuexu-alert-mejesuitcommunications-decision
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion