MIT Campus Police and the Cambridge Police Department are joining forces in a new program aimed at reducing crime on the perimeter of the campus.
The new Team Policing Program made its debut Monday, December 7, when Campus Patrol Officer Paul J. Baratta and Cambridge Patrolman Mark Mahoney set out from Building W31, where Campus Police headquarters is located, for a foot patrol along Massachusetts Avenue and Memorial Drive.
Campus Police Chief Anne P. Glavin proposed the joint operation to her colleague, Cambridge Police Commissioner Perry Anderson, about a month ago.
"This program is aimed at the increase of serious crime we have experienced recently on the perimeter of the campus," Chief Glavin said. "It is our hope that the high visibility of a walking patrol will have an impact."
Recent random incidents at the edges of the campus include the murder of a student on Memorial Drive last September 18, the assault and attempted robbery of another student near Albany Street and Massachusetts Avenue the same weekend, an incident last month in which a female student fought off a man who tried to drag her into Killian Court as she walked along Memorial Drive.
At the outset, Chief Glavin said, a police team will walk a selected area of the campus perimeter for an hour on several days a week at various times during the morning and evening. In a few weeks, the chief said, the Team Patrol will be examined with an eye toward an extension to late evening hours.
After the September 18 murder of Yngve Raustein, MIT undertook a broad review of campus safety precautions and security procedures. The Team Policing Program is an outgrowth of that review, Chief Glavin.
Meanwhile, MIT is working with the Metropolitan District Commission to improve lighting along Memorial Drive and work is under way to install seven additional emergency phones on campus along Memorial Drive.
A version of this article appeared in the December 9, 1992 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 37, Number 16).
