[1262] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
MIT Police Chief John DiFava
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ike)
Wed Mar 20 00:55:09 2002
Message-ID: <200203200459.XAA05094@blueberry.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 23:59:02 -0500
From: Ike <ike@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
Tonight I attended the session with MIT Police Chief John DiFava, and
since there were very few people in attendance (and on general
principles) I thought I'd try to summarize what I got out of it, for
people on this list who might be interested.
DiFava spent a lot of time talking about his experience, his attitude
toward policing in general and on campus, and even some of his
opinions regarding college life in general. He responded to all the
questions that we had for him, but I got the impression that he
already had some idea of some things he wanted to say before he showed
up.
For those who didn't already know, DiFava comes to MIT after being
Colonel of the Mass. State Police, and also after overseeing security
at Logan Airport after 9/11/2001. There are some articles in the Tech
and Tech Talk about him, which are fairly informative.
With regard to policing, DiFava emphasized professionalism, leadership
by example, and community-based policing (as opposed to military
style, hierarchial policing, or something like that). He reassured us
that he doesn't want CPs patrolling the dorms, but that he would like
to see them stopping by the front desks to get to know people a
little. He also expressed interest in running things like IAP classes
or a citizen's academy to teach people more about what policing is
like, and in setting up a ride-along program for students as well.
One interesting position he took is that he is not in favor of all of
MIT's officers being EMTs, not because he's against police being well
trained, but because legally, police officers and EMTs can have
fundamentally different obligations at a given scene. This, he said,
can make it hard for the CPs to do their job, and it can also make the
students afraid to call for medical help with regard to alcohol,
because that medical help is also law enforcement. DiFava also said
he had heard that a student-run ambulance service was being thought
about, and was enthusiastic about the possibility; and that if the
students were able to put something decent together, he would back it
"1000%".
With regard to alcohol, DiFava also seemed very sympathetic to
students, and said that he didn't want to ruin anyone's career because
they'd had too many drinks. I got the impression that he won't go out
of his way at all to enforce or encourage the enforcement of the
letter of the alcohol policy, but of course, being the professional
that he is, he'd deal with any serious situation as a serious
situation.
Other than improving the Campus Police in general, DiFava said the
biggest problems that he wants to target at MIT are the rampant theft
problem and the related problem of general security, and he mentioned
his recent work at Logan as an example of how things might be improved
here: at Logan, all staff, from janitors to the clerks at the airline
counters were trained after 9/11 to look out for certain types of
suspicious behavior, and how to report what they saw. He doesn't want
to start locking all the doors after certain hours, but he does want
to combat what he sees as a casual attitude towards theft on this campus,
i.e. that it's expected that some fraction of things will be stolen over
time here.
Some of the questions touched on CP-fraternity relations, and even the
occasional interaction between the CPs and reuse@mit.edu, but the
questions that got the most attention (from the attendees) were with
regard to some negative experiences that students had had with CPs,
where the students felt the CPs had been unecessarily overbearing or
harsh in situations that did not demand it. DiFava said that students
who have problems with CPs in this way should not be afraid to file a
complaint, and said that his policy was that all complaints, whether
anonymous, over the phone, or face to face, would be investigated.
DiFava also expressed interest in trying to increase the level of
understanding between students and CPs, so that CPs won't seem to be
overreacting as much, and so that student's will understand the
reasons that CPs sometimes do overreact.
I hope that this summary was useful,
-Ike
-----------------------
P.S.
Ok, so all that stuff wasn't terribly objective, but I tried. While
I'm at it, I'd like to throw in a few totally subjective/irrelevant
impressions and observations:
DiFava looks nothing like his picture on
http://web.mit.edu/cp/www/chief/
Instead, his hair is a little bit longer, he's got a handlebar
moustache, and he doesn't smile like that.
He talks alot about professionalism, but he embodies it as well,
and seems sincere; he doesn't seem to be faking it at all.
At the same time, he was very candid with his personal opinions
and philosophies.
This guy looks like something out of an action movie.
The pizza was greasy but nourishing.
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