UCPD: Help phones critical to campus safety

The University of Cincinnati Police and Public Safety departments count the more than 200 help phones on campus as elements critical to community safety and security.

UCPD dispatch receives on average 15 to 20 help phone calls per day, according to UCPD Capt. Karen Patterson.

UC Police Chief and Director of Public Safety, Eugene Ferrara, said the goal of his department is for any member of the UC community to be able to see at least one help phone from any location on campus. 

Officer Dante Wright, a security officer assigned to Public Safety, concurs, and notes that accessibility is a key initiative.

“We try to keep [the phones] in areas of high vehicular traffic and high pedestrian traffic areas,” Wright said.

People use the help phones for a multitude of reasons, including reporting crimes, most often assaults and robberies, requesting medical assistance for slips and falls and requesting  motorist assistance for circumstances including fender benders, dead car batteries, keys locked in cars and misplaced autos, according to Wright.

While car-related calls are numerous, Patterson said the majority of legitimate calls come from phones out in the open on campus, as opposed to those located in parking garages. Legitimate calls are most likely to occur following football games, concerts and other outdoor student-based events.

A full 40 percent of all calls, Patterson said, are not legitimate. False alarms, either pranks or accidental calls, account for about seven to eight calls each day.

Most such calls, Wright said, are made by children who either don’t know better, or adolescents who think it’s a game.

When a call is made (all that is necessary is for the caller to either lift the handset on one of the older help phones or press a button on one of the newer phones), the call is received at central dispatch at Three Edwards Center. The dispatcher immediately knows the location of the caller, and in many cases can zoom in on the location with one of the campus’ many high-powered rooftop cameras. An added benefit of this ability is callers are often unable to accurately describe their locations. One to two officers will then be dispatched to the location, with police officers responding to the crime-related calls (witnesses, not victims, place most of these calls) and security officers responding to auto-assistance calls.

Patterson and Wright both confirm that response time is quick, frequently less than a minute from the time dispatch picks up the call.

“Much faster than the five or six minutes ambulance and other emergency services take to respond to emergencies off-campus,” Wright said.

In addition to accessibility and speed of response, it is critical that all help phones be fully functional, and Wright is one of the people responsible for weekly checks of the phones to ensure all are functioning properly. All phones are checked for functionality, accessibility, visibility and availability of directions (provided by McGruff the Crime Dog on signage placed near older, unlighted phones). Any problem or deficiencies require work orders to be issued immediately.

“We take these very seriously,” Wright said, “because they can be lifesaving.” 

Patterson emphasized that in addition to being potentially lifesaving, the phones are a resource for all UC community members and are not exclusively for emergencies. 

In fact, she said, many people may shy away from using a help phone because, “Oh my gosh, they’re just for emergencies. But we assume people will call because someone broke an ankle. Maybe someone will call and say, ‘I’m lost’ or ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do.”

And that’s okay, Patterson said.

 She just wants to make sure her officers get all the information they need to best aid the UC community.

“The more information people can give us,” Patterson said, “the better service we can give you.”

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Verify you are human:

Enter the characters in the image above: