At around 8 p.m. last Friday night, I met with Officer Duane Corey, who will be celebrating
10 years with Public Safety this year. When I was about to go out on patrol with him, he explained that it would be a simple evening.
The first event of the night was at about 8:10, when he reported to a fire alarm in the Townhouse 15 Block. It turned out to be from cooking smoke, one of the most common causes of fire alarm setoffs.
When the second officer responded and went to turn off the alarm, he found his way to the block housing the fire panel barred by two of the couches issued to the townhouse, which violates the housing contract. The matter was referred to the Town House Coordinator as well as the Area Coordinator.
At 8:45, a medical call came in for Regis Hall. A resident had hit their head and gone unconscious. After assessing the injury, the student was sent to St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport. No alcohol was involved.
Around 9:30 p.m., I went with Corey to Fairfield Prep in response to an alarm sounding there, which worked well for him because his normal duty included locking all of the doors of Prep.
I then switched at around 10 p.m. to Officer Brian Elliot, who has been with Public Safety for a year and recently returned from Galveston, Texas where he had been on a medical
response team. He began with the systematic locking of doors in all the buildings on his designated side of campus, which is one of the most important duties of this shift. Gates are locked at 11:00 p.m. by two officers, as are buildings.
The campus is split into two halves, and it takes about 45 minutes to lock up all the buildings on a respective half. While locking up, other calls will be responded to if they occur, but there were no calls this night. Officers also check for student cars on side streets. He noted that out-of-state license plates and FU bumper stickers stand out since the rest of the cars have Connecticut plates.
Then, while patrolling around 11:20 p.m., four people were found entering the Regis gate after it had been locked. The officer checked and found that 2 were students and the other 2 were visitors, with no prior warnings.
All were issued a verbal warning and told to get guest passes. We met up with Sergeant
Currier at around midnight; he has been with Public Safety for 22 years.
While he was talking about the role of Public Safety, four students exited a cab in the circle of Loyola Drive. One male student proceeded to climb into a tree in plain sight of the two officers, exclaiming, ‘Can you hear me now?’ into his cell phone. He told the officer that he did not get better reception in the tree as he had hoped. The student was asked to stay out of trees for his own safety.
At around 12:40 p.m., a male and female student were found together
on a university field and were warned not to be there when majority of the gates were locked after dark.
Rounds were made in Regis at around 1:00 and then in Jogues. I rode along until around 2:15, but nothing else of interest occured.
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