USG featured the Director of Public Safety and Parking Services Zachary DuBois and Emergency Manager Brian Rich at the Undergraduate Student Government meeting to share new tools and security systems on campus on Thursday.
For the first time, public safety officers at the University of St. Thomas have body-worn cameras to increase protection and openness.
“It has helped us to make sure we are holding ourselves accountable and maintain transparency,” DuBois said.
One of the biggest complaints public safety receives is the “rudeness” of officers, DuBois said, and now, this can be resolved when assessing the footage.
“I think what happens sometimes is the tone, and that doesn’t come out unless you are looking back at the video,” DuBois said.
The office also has new radios after the old ones “passed their life expectancy,” DuBois said.
The radios have clearer audio through the microphones and stronger protections to keep people, other than officers, off the channels.
“These ones are encrypted, so it is going to be really difficult to potentially eavesdrop on them,” DuBois said. “If someone gets ahold of a radio, we actually have the ability to kick them off the system.”
The final gadget added to public safety’s tool bag this semester is department cell phones. These phones are crucial in emergencies, as they have intensified service connections.
“I can get service over everybody else on the system, so I can get through in an emergency,” DuBois said.
In addition to the new devices public safety has this year, Rich shared new safety systems that public safety is exploring.
“Some of these systems they are looking at now can place a student on public safety’s radar as they walk home across campus,” Rich said. “If for whatever reason that student, faculty or staff, doesn’t make it there in a certain time period, we start that radar– hey, are you still walking?”
It is an “opt-in” system, so students can use it if they feel unsafe or worried about walking home.
“Every single staff, every single faculty, every single student– they are our responsibility,” Rich said.
Cecilia Wallace can be reached at wall1238@stthomas.edu.