Some would argue that the hardest part of starting a movement of change is the beginning. As we’ve progressed through the years, the charge to end sexual assaults, both on campus and in society, has undergone a transformation that has brought all of the right kinds of awareness to a violence that hinders our society today. Even more recently, the “It’s On Us” campaign has blanketed campuses across the nation, including Iowa State.

It was Cale Truhlsen who stepped up when a group of men began harassing a woman Truhlsen had no relationship with on Feb. 8. He intervened like all of the posters, campaigns and videos we see asked him to. As a result of his human decency, he was hospitalized with a hole in his intestines, a broken nose and two eyes that were swollen shut. It wasn’t the first kind of cowardly attack on a student or Ames resident in the Campustown area. And with the way things are now, it won’t be the last.

Truhlsen is the kind of male role model the ISU, Ames and American society needs to see. Regardless of the outcome, when “it was on him,” he made the right move. His mother, Jennifer Truhlsen, made an alarming and sobering comment when talking about her son’s assault in a previous interview with the Daily. She said, “Can you imagine if those guys had gone after that girl the way they went after my son?”

Maybe Truhlsen was in the right place at the right time with the wrong group of people. Recognizing the situation and acting on it was the right thing to do, but unfortunately for Truhlsen, his actions caused him to be intensely beaten in the middle of the 400 block of Welch Avenue. Around bar closing hours, numerous intoxicated people exit the establishments in the heavily populated Welch Avenue area. At a time when assaults, public intoxication and numerous other crimes are at their peak, there wasn’t any type of security measure around to help catch the men who viciously attacked Truhlsen.

What the men did to Truhlsen is a crime. Ames Police patrol the area regularly but not having any type of security camera to help deter crime or protect Truhlsen, his friends or the woman he helped that night feel safe, should be a crime in itself.

Ames police said it has hoped to install security cameras in high traffic areas of Campustown. But thanks to the Ames City Council, that hope will remain stagnant. The Council voted down the proposal to put up security cameras in Campustown in the past. So, until that hope becomes a reality, the assaults and other crimes will continue. Instead of relying on witnesses who may or may not be intoxicated at the time of a crime, rely on the physical evidence of a security tape.

It was on Truhlsen to step up and protect the random female. But now, it’s on law enforcement and Campustown businesses to step up and keep students like Truhlsen safe from the tragic consequences he endured for doing the right thing.