I was curious to see how Providence changes at night from a safety perspective, so I went on a late night ride-a-long with Lt. Antone Souza of RISD Public Safety to better assess things. On the night shift in their main office were (pictured from left) Sgt. Eric McLaughlin, Officer Kristine Pascucci, Dispatcher Raymond Moore, Lt. Antone Souza, and Officer Fritz Harryson. They reviewed for me the various processes that have been put in place by Chief Ken Bilodeau for doing a strict daily assessment of ongoing events in the Providence area combined with constant vigilance of activity across the campus.

RISD’s campus is spread across many buildings, and in my mind I wasn’t sure about how quickly a car could get from point to point in case of emergency. During my ride-a-long there was a need to get across campus fast to check on a matter (which turned out luckily to be a false-alarm) and I noted that the response time was very quick. There we encountered Officer Scott Suggs (not pictured) who had arrived on the scene first. All was well and I was impressed with the professionalism of the team.

That night before I went out with Public Safety, I had a chance to sit and chat in the Met (a cafeteria in what is called “the Quad”) with a few freshmen. I noted that they felt the atmosphere of the Quad was something special — it reminded me of Harvard where the freshmen all surround the Harvard courtyard. In the future I think I’ll catch breakfast at the Met once in a while to become better aware of what freshmen and maybe other undergrads are thinking about, and to also check on what my friends in Public Safety are thinking as well.