Public Safety is incompetent

With the end of the academic year nearing, it remains necessary to address what is becoming an escalating problem on our campus

: the increase in the level of poor decisions and utterly incompetent actions perpetrated by officers of the Department of Public Safety. Mike Rossano, who took over as head of the department at the beginning of the year, brought with him the hope of the F&M community that he would be able to drive out, or, at the very least, rein in the rampant levels of sheer ineptitude from his organization. Unfortunately, it seems clear that even someone as knowledgeable and qualified as Mr. Rossano is up against grave odds in dealing with a number of individuals within the department who choose to ride roughshod over the rights of students. It should be noted that in order for relations between the campus community and the Department of Public Safety to improve, it is important to understand the strained and disturbing history that exists between the two groups. I have been privy to many of the unprofessional incidents that have occurred between students and Public Safety officers and will elaborate on several here, although both the names of the students and officers will be withheld. 

In early September, two students were assaulted near the corner of West James and North Charlotte streets. Public Safety responded to the incident and commenced an investigation. Now, this would appear to be a perfectly logical response from campus public safety to an occurrence of this kind. However, here’s where one begins to question one’s confidence in an organization that, in its mission statement, claims to “be working around the clock to maintain a safe atmosphere for faculty, staff, students, and visitors alike.” In the case of one of the students, as opposed to attempting to find out who was responsible for the assault, the officer on the scene instead chose to spend time accusing the student of underage drinking and of exaggerating what had obviously been a violent mugging. Let’s break down this particular incident and identify the absolute failure on the part of the officer to respond correctly and, say, follow protocol. The student in question was under the College’s “amnesty policy,” which withholds from Public Safety the ability to issue citations for underage drinking and forbids the College from taking disciplinary action, if the student has requested assistance. Whether the student was guilty of underage drinking is a moot point—the fact that he was assaulted trumps anything else. It seems obvious that the officer would be more concerned with the safety and well-being of an F&M student than whether he had been out drinking that evening. It also seems obvious that instead of wasting time in expressing unfounded accusations, the officer should have focused more energy and attention on the greater danger to the college community—the presence of an assaulter. 

Another incident of sheer unprofessionalism on the part of a Public Safety officer occurred more recently. A student was issued a city citation for creating a “public nuisance” and, to quote said citation, “yelling and shouting and yelling.” However, as seems to be the norm for the department, several grave errors were made on the part of the issuing officer. First, the student in question was participating in a fraternity bid night, which, to be clear, is an annually scheduled Greek event approved by the College administration, and has been exceedingly successful for the past several years. Further, the noise occurred inside of Marshall Hall, where no complaint was issued by either Public Safety or any students or staff at the time. And, after being pressed by two officers to leave, the roughly 30 or so participants willingly acquiesced. This is where things get a little tricky. After exiting the building, the student approached one of the officers to request his name, in order to file a complaint regarding the manner in which the situation was handled. Instead, he was met with the threat of being issued a city noise citation (and, after refusing to back down, was subsequently detained in one of the department’s interrogation rooms and denied the right to speak to his parents, not to mention issued said citation). Where then, I ask, is the accountability to be held, if attempts to exercise one’s right to file a complaint is retaliated against? First, issuing “noise complaints” inside the dorms is a power normally given to House Advisors. Second, the student did not provoke the officer in any way whatsoever. And third, unless the officer in question has some superhuman ability to recognize the pitch of the student’s voice while “yelling and shouting and yelling,” and then connect it to the same student while being asked for his name, there is no way to prove this one particular student was responsible for creating a public nuisance. Qui! te simpl y, this is a clear-cut case of an officer being wrong and allowing his own hubris to impair his judgment. 

It would seem that many of the incidents involving Public Safety are due to a lack of education within the department, as well as a lack of in-house accountability for officers who blatantly disregard protocol. Many of the officers are either clearly unaware of F&M’s policies on certain issues, not to mention what the law actually states, or simply choose to disregard it. Obvious breaches of protocol, as highlighted in the two aforementioned incidents, as well as in several recent instances of officers entering the College Hill lofts (by placing their hands over the peepholes of the doors and then knocking in an attempt to gain entry) only serve to shake students’ faith in an organization that is supposed to be there to offer assistance. What reason do students have to trust officers who seem far more interested in punishing them than protecting them? Unless there is some sort of departmental prize for the officer with the most issued citations at the end of every month, why would officers be so quick to go after students?  I urge Mr. Rossano, as well as the College administration and the rest of the campus community, to demand accountability from the Department of Public Safety. Students want to be able to trust officers of the department; we just haven’t been shown that we have any grounds to do so.