Suffolk University Police Chief Kenneth Walsh spoke with Student Government Association (SGA) senators at Thursday’s meeting about what the department is doing this fall.
Students voiced concerns regarding safety near the hotels Suffolk is lodging students at, new features regarding residence hall maintenance requests within the livesafe app and what SUPD is doing to respond to students who are not following COVID-19 rules and regulations.
Sabrina Liu, chair of SGA’s diversity committee and senator for the class of 2023, also questioned Walsh on SUPD’s relationship with the Boston Police Department (BPD).
“A big thing for me was that SUPD does have closer ties with BPD, and while it’s inappropriate to create an adversarial relationship with the city, I questioned how close we should be to a police force (BPD) that has done incredibly little to distance from racial profiling and violent policing,” Liu said in an interview with The Suffolk Journal after the meeting.
In response to Liu’s question during the meeting, Walsh said SUPD maintains a relationship with BPD so that Boston officers can assist in certain situations university police respond to.
“As far as our relationship with BPD, we are limited in what we can do,” Walsh said during the meeting. “We are more security minded, we are not armed, so when a crime happens we are careful of what we can go into and what we can’t and in that we need to call Boston PD or MBTA police, just like anybody would call 911 if we need something… because that is what the police departments do.”
“We barely make any arrests during the year…” Walsh said. “Everything that we do is service driven because if a crime happens right in front of us… we have to take action.”
SUPD Sergeant Jameson Yee said at the meeting that SUPD and BPD are not a united division of officers.
“I think that there is a misunderstanding or perception with that because that’s not true, we are with one department, we are with one agency with Suffolk University Police, we are not on the payroll or embedded with Boston Police,” Yee said.
Members of the Class of 2024 who are running for senator also spoke during a candidates forum at the meeting. Candidates were given the option to gather 50 signatures from their peers, or answer questions about their campaign at the candidates forum.
Elections for the class of 2024 closed Sept. 23.
President Karine Kanj nominated the following senators for Committee Chairs:
Student Affairs Committee– Lola Cuko, Class of 2022
Academics Committee– Meagan Dyer, Class of 2022
Public Relations Committee– Melissa Contover, Class of 2022
Finance Committee– Tara Maltese, Class of 2023
Diversity Committee– Sabrina Liu, Class of 2023
Housing and Facilities Committee– Logan Casey, Class of 2022
SJRB (Student Judicial Review Board)
Sarah Lawton, Class of 2023
Chessa Mackenzie, Class of 2022
James Usovicz, Class of 2021
Nancy Chammas, Class of 2022
Elections Committee
Xin Yi Yap, Class of 2021
Kostas Loukas, Class of 2021
David Barsoum, Class of 2023
George Yeghyayan, Class of 2022
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