CHICAGO - Students at the University of Chicago have been calling for their safety to be taken more seriously by the school after a Chinese student became the latest victim of Chicago's notorious gun problem, which some experts ascribed to the ingrained social problems in the U.S.

A 24-year-old student attending the University of Chicago Zheng Shaoxiong was shot on November 9.

Another Chinese student at the university Han Jiaxiu said he has long heard about the violence in the city and the school's surrounding area.

"I had a U.S. classmate back when I was an undergraduate student, and his home was somewhere near Chicago. He gave me a lot of advice when he heard that I was coming to take my graduate classes here," said Han.

After arriving at the University of Chicago to study, the successive security incidents around Han also confirmed the previous advice from his classmate, as Han revealed that in addition to the murder of Chinese student on November 9, there were at least two other criminal incidents in November alone.

"Also in November, there was a classmate from the University of Chicago who lives in my apartment building. He said that his car, which was parked under the apartment building, was smashed by someone. It wasn't scratched, it was maliciously smashed," said Han.

"On (November) 11, and that's less than a week ago, another school employee was robbed here on campus. It was about midnight and the robbers were likely armed with a gun. There were two of them," he said.

After Zheng was murdered on the street, a wave of panic flooded across campus as many students said the now fear that they might become the next victim.

Han said that a number of students have started searching for roommates on social websites, wanting to move to somewhere safer.

Meanwhile, many people were hoping that the University of Chicago could make a move to prevent further tragedies.

"The students from the University of Chicago have called for the school to step up security after this incident. We were hoping that they could open online courses as the location of the gunshot was right on the way where most of the graduates would cross when taking public transportation to school," said Han.

Wang Zhidong, a Chicago-based lawyer who once handled the case of Zhang Yingying, another Chinese scholar who was kidnapped and killed back in 2017, said safety in the U.S. has gone from bad to worse over the years.

The lawyer said that based on his years of life and work experiences in the United States, the fundamental reason behind this vicious case are the numerous and serious social problems in the country as similar cases have occurred in Chicago and across many other cities.

"I think the most serious social problems of the U.S. include racial problems, gun and drug control, and the gap between the wealth and the poor," said Wang.