Tufts Community Union (TCU) president Dave Baumwoll and vice president Rafi Goldberg met with Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole and campus leaders from other schools last night to discuss a recently implemented Boston police policy aimed at reducing off-campus student crime.
The currently un-named policy is essentially an effort to create more efficient community policing by allowing university administrators and police to work with Boston police when necessary. The main goal of this is to enforce proper penalties on students that commit
serious crimes off-campus.
Goldberg described the meeting as "mostly us [students] learning what police are charged with doing."
Baumwoll said that he believe the operation is a "specific effort to protect" students.
This is being done through extra measures such as an increased police presence in Kenmore Square for this Sunday's Super Bowl and an effort by the police department to work more closely with univerisity administrators.
The original name of the initiative was Operation Student Shield, but O'Toole agreed at the meeting to change its name. Students and administrators were concerned that Student Shield falsely suggested that students were being specifically targeted. A new name has not yet been decided on.
Baumwoll and Goldberg were part of a task force on student-city relations, comprised of students from colleges in the greater Boston area. The task force was organized by Dr. Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University and met for the first time last week in order to discuss how they would ensure that students would be treated fairly by the new initiative.
