By Stephen Cooney
It’s Saturday, May 3, and the phones in the David S. Mack Public Safety and Information Center are ringing off the hook. There is no time to respond to students who need a ride back across campus because there are more pressing issues for the officers to be dealing with. The students looking for a ride will have to wait.
The night tour has started and the day-shift has not yet completely filed out of the office. The officers on duty are juggling the paperwork for a dorm room fight, which had a non-student get caught in the middle with another student’s HUID. The young man is banned from campus for trespassing, and he is issued a notice that says if he is found on campus again, he will be arrested.
The day crew wants to go home and another long busy endeavor awaits the midnight shift.
“A car has blown the entrance off of the Hempstead turnpike,” comes over the radio in the Mack office. “There are four males in the car.”
The phones do not stop ringing, and the night shift is trying to figure out their assignments, all while trying to hunt down the run-away vehicle before the men can slip into a dorm room or Hofstra USA for the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity party.
Minutes later, four men are led through the door-all non-students- and they are all banned from campus. It’s not even midnight and I haven’t even left headquarters yet.
The shift change is finally complete and Operations Manager Ronald Moore has finished handing out assignments. I’m going to spend the night in the truck with Moore and Public Safety Officer Roxy Coreas.
Things have slowed down and there is finally time to unlock a few doors for students who forgot their keys on the north side of campus.
“We probably have about 14 or 15 officers out tonight,” Moore said. “That is about normal on a Friday or Saturday night. Every dorm is completely covered on every shift.
“The officers walk from the 12th floor to the first floor at least twice a night. They also walk around campus.”
Three lockouts: it takes about five minutes for Coreas and Moore to let the students into their buildings before we head to Hofstra USA to make sure everything is running smoothly.
There is a consistent mist outside, but not enough to deter students and their guests from lining up at the doors for the party. We are on our way to meet with Officer Micah Terry, the SEM Coordinator in charge of security at the event. We slip in the side door, past the student Public Safety officers and over to Terry.
“I keep order.” Terry said. “It can get out of order, but we know our procedures. We have nailed this down to just not letting students come in and out. We have a 500-person capacity and we really do not go over that limit.”
Public Safety doesn’t worry about the party; it’s just part of their job. But throughout the night everyone not responding to an incident will circle past the party and stop by to make sure everything stays organized.
Moore has finished his walk through of Hofstra USA. We are headed back to the truck to circle campus; the lines have doubled and we are back in the car headed down Liberty Avenue. Looks like I should get used to Hofstra USA for the night.
There is a loud ring in the car. “Emergency box activated” sounds from the box near the driver’s seat. “Corner of Liberty Avenue and Hofstra Boulevard.”
We are only a few hundred feet away.
“That is one of the blue lights.” Moore said. “The calls come through the radio when someone activates them.”
There is nothing happening when we get there: The top light is hanging by its power cord and it seems to be a malfunction. The light is broken.
Moore grabs the radio and tells the dispatcher to process a work order.
“We got a report from the C-Square West RSR that a student just walked in with a bat,” the dispatcher said over the radio. “RSR said he looks suspicious.”
“He probably hit the light with the bat,” another Public Safety officer said.
Before we can even get through both of the swipe access doors on the RSR booth, there is another call of a noise complaint in a room within Williamsburg House. Moore and three other public safety officers walk into the building.
“That’s the same room as the bat,” an officer said.
The din of music and voices is pouring from the open windows of the corner room on the second floor of the building. The officers proceed through the doors, down the dimly lit, brick hallways of the building and up the short stacks of small, metal steps. The music is blaring, and it is audible at the foot of the stairs.
Moore walks up to the door and knocks-no answer. He knocks again. The music is still playing and there is no response.
“Public Safety, open up,” Moore said, and still no response. He takes his master key out and enters the room.
The room is filled with a few students surrounding a table with beer-filled cups arranged for a game of beer-pong. As the officers move through the suite to investigate, the two attached bedrooms are filled with more students, and a set of young men have locked themselves in the bathroom.
After realizing the number of students in the room, calls for backup officers went out to come and assist the ones already there. There are ten individuals in the room, one of whom is a non-student. This should be a simple job: A few citations and everyone will be on their way, but Moore realizes that all of the students in the room are non-residents.
This means all the students are trespassing, and some student will find himself on the wrong end of a citation in the morning. Add another banned student to the list, since one of the men in the room is an off-campus visitor.
As the officers hand out the citations, they explain to the students what they mean and send them on their way.
Before we can even settle back into the car, we are on our way to another job. The dispatcher posted at the Oak Street entrance to the University has called a ride for two women, who are waiting next to the swipe booth when the vehicle arrives.
Moore circles around, and Coreas and Moore help the girls into the vehicle.
The odor of stale liquor and vomit permeates the air immediately upon the girls’ entrance. I lean towards the dashboard and the passenger window, trying to get as far away from the smell as possible. Moore seems to be doing the same.
I pull my hoodie over my face and try to pretend this isn’t happening.
Coreas, on the other hand, is unshaken. She is in the back seat sitting right beside the two girls, and she doesn’t flinch for a second. Instead, she talks to the two girls, to see who will be taking care of the one who is obviously more intoxicated. She has a motherly demeanor about her and tries to assure them that everything will be okay. It’s impressive.
I cannot think of anything other than how am I going to make it in the car without adding to the smell while she acts like this just any other night.
Moore races to C-square Far East. I am beginning to think he is as uncomfortable in the car as I am. We can not make it there fast enough. When we arrive, Moore and Coreas escort the girls through the C-Square gate and into their room. I am sitting in the car hoping that the smell will go away as quickly as possible.
“I go to mostly all the jobs that I can,” Moore said. “Back and forth to the parties, fire alarms and anything else. Tonight you will get people at the Oak Street and over here [by the softball fields] trying to jump the fence and get into the parties-like you saw the guys that ran the booth before.”
We drive around campus a few times and, just as we pass the student center, lo and behold, we get a prophetic call from dispatch.
“I have a group of males trying to jump the fence on Oak Street,” dispatch said. “I got one over right now, and another one.”
We speed towards the entrance near Oak Street.
“Four over,” the radio calls.
Whipping around the corner into the parking lot behind the towers, there are already flashing Public Safety lights. Two units have the young men surrounded, basking in the beams of the headlights and the yellow emergency lights on top of the truck. Moore finishes off the circle with our unit.
The officers check the men for foreign objects or weapons while explaining that they are going to be taken to headquarters, and will be banned from campus. After getting ID cards from all of the men, Public Safety puts them into trucks and brings them back to headquarters for processing.
Before the officers can even finish processing the first five bans, they are hit with another car running the entrance gate.
Some of the officers take off to hunt down the vehicle. They canvas the campus and come back through the door with four men who have claimed the car after realizing it has been booted. Yet again, another set of non-students have to be processed for banning.
It is 4 a.m., and the shift is halfway over. The campus has quieted down, and Moore has taken to the paperwork necessary to process all of the bans. I make one final round through the south campus with an officer before being called back to headquarters to meet with Ed Bracht, the director of Public Safety. There is no rest on the weekends, not even for the boss.
It is 4.a.m, and the officers told me that Bracht wouldn’t leave campus before, at least, the early evening.
I knew what to expect. I was sure the officers would be busy, but I didn’t know how busy. There was no time between jobs and very rarely was there any time to rest. It’s 5 a.m.; I am on my way to bed, and the midnight crew still has another three hours before they are off duty.
And that’s only if nothing else happens to hold them over.