The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Huntington News

The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Huntington News

The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Huntington News

BPD captain brings experience to district

For the neighborhoods surrounding Northeastern, there’s a new sheriff in town.

In a move that shuffled several Boston Police Department district heads through different parts of the city, Acting Boston Police Commissioner Albert Goslin announced last week that Captain William Evans is now in charge of the Back Bay, Fenway and South End neighborhoods.

Evans, formerly at the helm of District 14, which includes Allston-Brighton, is credited with spearheading Operation Student Shield, a Boston police initiative aimed at curbing disruptive student behavior.

The program is framed around city leaders working together with university administrators, and is centered around a “zero-tolerance” policy against issues like public drinking, vandalism and loud parties.

Now in its second year, Operation Student Shield “was a citywide effort, so each of the captains in each district in the city was responsible for implementing it,” said Director of Government Relations and Community Affairs Jeff Doggett.

“It was a very important and very big deal, and whether it’s a Northeastern student or another student, they were held accountable for their actions,” he said.

Goslin also announced that Captain Paul Russell, formerly in charge of the district covering South Boston, is now taking over in Roxbury.

The district captain’s role is to oversee the district and make decisions like where and when to deploy officers, Doggett said.

“We work with the captains in the two districts from a variety of different ways, with public safety, but also with student behavior,” he said. “They serve on a variety of community committees alongside Northeastern officials, but the most important thing is that we try to find ways to address student behavior issues together.”

Doggett said students may notice a change of approach in the neighborhoods.

“I think what is going to be different, from a student’s perspective is that Captain Evans, who’s been the head of the Operation Student Shield for the whole city, is now going to be in our district, so I would expect that he’s going to bring a little extra vigilance to that.”

Some of those methods have included university staff riding through Boston in police cruisers on the weekend, Doggett said.

“And in unfortunate situations when students act inappropriately and they are arrested, we work with the officers to get the information so we can send that information to the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution,” he said.

After participating in a “Welcome to the Neighborhood” event for the incoming class on Tuesday, Evans said he was looking forward to his new surroundings.

“I’ll do a lot of the same programs,” he said. “We were very successful, I thought, in bringing back the quality of life from some areas, just by making students aware of the repercussions of their actions, so hopefully it will work out well.”

Doggett said adjusting to the new captains should be a smooth transition for the Northeastern community.

“I think overall it should change very little,” he said, “because the two captains that were here before were pretty effective in dealing with student behavior issues in the neighborhood.”

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