Ride-Along With RUPD

'Safety starts with you'

The Observer's Kristy Barry goes on a ride-along with the RUPD

By: Kristy Barry

Posted: 4/10/07

When asked if a bulletproof vest and a helmet are necessary for a ride-along with the RUPD, officer Lorna Peart laughs. "Don't worry, doll," she says in her British accent.

She drives toward the New Street and Halsey Street area, a hot spot for car break-ins due to poor lighting and its isolation from campus. Police regularly patrol the area as well as officers in plain clothes. She parks the car on the sidewalk and flashes the red and blue lights, as a deterrent.

"We have to get out and walk along the sidewalk because sometimes we can't see if cars have been broken into," she says.

Nearly three steps later, jagged glass edges encircle the passenger side window of a Honda Accord. The dashboard is gutted, the faceplate dangling into the center console. A car seat is resting in the back. Cases of books on DVD are lying in the front seat.

Peart radios in to the station, "Victor…Romeo…Juliet," and discovers that the driver is a Rutgers-Newark student.

One spot down, shattered glass is sprinkled on the sidewalk. "That's from a break-in earlier," she says.

Peart emphasizes how nothing should be left in cars. "You may not think it's valuable…but your garbage could be someone else's treasure."

She shines a flashlight into a car with a book bag in the back window. "See! Someone might want to see what's in the bag." The next car has a book bag on the passenger-side floor, books on the seat, CDs and coins in the center console.

Peart shares a story of a student who reported a car break-in nearly 15 minutes after it happened because "he had to stop get his pizza first."

"You have to think that everything is a part of you. If that was your car, would you do the same thing?" she says. "When more people are active, the community blossoms ten-fold."

"For a community that's so small and diverse, it should be more united," Peart says.

The driver of the Honda Accord approaches the car shivering, eyes sunken. She says she's an evening student who lives an hour away. Peart stresses the importance of leaving the car empty, including the DVDs and the spare change.

"They took the CD player!" the woman exclaimed, throwing her hands toward her car. "There wasn't even a dollar in there!"

"Change turns suspects into criminals…" Peart says.

The driver agrees to bring her car around to the station in order for the Physical Plant to tape up her window. Quivering, she says that last semester her uninsured car was hit from behind and the driver gave a phony insurance card. She has to work in the morning and she doesn't understand why this would happen, when at home she leaves bicycles and toys in the yard with no worry.

As Peart fills out the report, she says that the mindset of a criminal is cruel, that they'd even victimize an "80-year-old with a crutch" for their next fix, to survive.

"It's a new era," she says, "No compassion."

The woman brushes the glass off her seat, starts her car, and Peart tells her to "get home safely." Yet, her turn signal no longer works.

Peart gets back into the patrol car and continues discussing student safety. She says she's baffled why students, especially women, don't take advantage of escorts. "It's nine at night…you're alone…in flip-flops…what are you going to do? You can't even use your sandals as a weapon!"

Students can call 973-353-5581 and an escort will pick them up from Penn Station, the Broad Street Station, and "almost anywhere," Peart says.

Riding along in the 30-degree night, four women are spotted walking up Bleeker Street, donned skirts and flimsy shoes. One has on a mini-skirt, bare legs, and stilettos. Another one is in fishnets and knee-high boots.

"See that?!" she says, shaking her head. "We're bundled up and still freezing!" She smacks her hand on the steering wheel for each word, "Safety…starts…with…the…individual."

Despite her daily aggravations, Peart says she just wants to protect the people on campus. "I love doing what I do--being there for the public," she says, after giving someone directions.

She says she likes to get familiar with students so they feel more inclined to come to her with concerns. Her uniform is intimidating, she says, for students from different areas and countries who harbor negative stigmas of police.

"I go to the dorms and ask students if they're okay, what issues they have," she says. "They feel more comfortable speaking with you and that's really important to me."

She encourages more students to do a ride-along, and says they shouldn't necessarily be vigilantes, but just more aware of their surroundings. "People are nosy when they shouldn't be and not nosy when they should be!"

Several security vehicles pass by and wave. Another driver needs directions. "It takes a team," she says. "Faculty, students and staff…we can't do it all."

---

© Copyright 2009 Observer