All Prospect alcohol calls to go to Borough Police

Public Safety will now notify the Princeton Borough Police Department on all calls for assistance from the eating clubs, Department of Public Safety Deputy Director Charles Davall confirmed in an email. Public Safety will still respond to calls from students or club officers to help intoxicated students, but it will now inform the police of the call and expect them to respond as well.

“The Borough has jurisdiction over the eating clubs. This has not changed,” Davall wrote. “In the past, if a student called for help from Prospect [Avenue] or an eating club we would and will continue to respond to the call for help. Now, the Borough wants to be informed of all [Public Safety] responses to calls from the eating clubs and we will comply with this request.”

Before this change, the PBPD was not always informed of calls made to Public Safety from eating clubs or on Prospect Avenue. If an intoxicated student was in need of assistance, Public Safety officers could respond to the call and transport the student to McCosh Health Center if he or she was not in need of urgent care. If the student was in fact in need of emergency help, Public Safety would contact an ambulance and arrange a transport to the University Medical Center at Princeton.

However, Borough Police Captain Nicholas Sutter said he was not aware that the change was being made or that, in some instances in the past, Public Safety would not inform the Borough Police of calls made on Prospect Avenue, which is within the PBPD’s jurisdiction because of its location outside the central campus. The police have always responded to the eating clubs’ requests for emergency services, he said.

“They’re changing something that we didn’t even know that they did,” Sutter said. “It’s been our understanding that they always contact us. If the University had a policy that they were not calling us, I’m not aware of it.”

This change in policy was met with significant concern by eating club presidents and the Interclub Council.

“This change in policy is really going to alter the way students take care of their intoxicated friends,” Jake Sally ’12, president of the ICC and Cloister Inn, said in an email. “Rather than simply calling Public Safety for a ride to McCosh, suddenly being ‘slightly too drunk’ results in a trip to the hospital escorted by police.”

According to Tower Club president Joey Barnett ’12, the club officers learned of the change from Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Maria Flores-Mills, who serves as the liaison between the administration and the eating clubs. While Barnett said that Tower’s officer corps will continue to call for assistance if needed, he is concerned that individual students might be more hesitant.

Barnett is also an associate editor for opinion for The Daily Princetonian.

“When it comes to people and their friends, once they hear the news they’re not going to be as eager to make the call because they know the person is going to go straight to [UMCP] and will have no chance of going to McCosh,” Barnett said. “People are going to avoid that, and that may have bad consequences for people who drink and then come out to the Street.”

Flores-Mills declined to comment.

Sutter, however, said that the Borough Police would not necessarily immediately transport students who needed help to UMCP. He did not say whether or not they would still be transported to McCosh, saying that medical personnel are best equipped to make decisions about what type of treatment a student needs.

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“We wouldn’t just put them in our cars and drive them somewhere,” Sutter said. “We’re not going to force somebody that’s not in need of medical assistance to go. That’s not our policy.”

Under current University policy, students who call Public Safety for help for a friend face no risk of consequences. According to Sutter, students who call for help — even if they are underage and intoxicated themselves — would not face charges.

“We do not charge people for making a call to the police to help a friend,” said Sutter, adding that of 71 underage alcohol incidents in the Borough between September 2010 and March 2011, not one had resulted in charges. “The one and main concern of the Princeton Borough Police Department with underage intoxicated people is to get them help and medical attention, not charging them.”

Still, the fact that Borough Police would be involved in all alcohol-related incidents on the Street — and that students considering calling for help would be aware of this — worries eating club presidents.

“I’m honestly afraid that this policy could result in students getting hurt, or worse,” Sally said in an email. “We really had an ideal system set up. I’m sad to see that go. I really believe it’s going to make things much more difficult for not only the students, but the University and the Borough as well.”