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Trinity Gets Its Own Police Substation

By Kerri Provost

May 19, 2013

A building which Trinity College employees say had been slated for academic use has been turned into a police substation.

For almost twenty years, there has been a police sub-station on the corner of Ward and Affleck Streets, just blocks away from Trinity College.

A glance at the campus safety log over the last several weeks shows that crimes which would land non-students in court are typically handled only by the college administration. Possession of alcohol by minors, false identification, drug paraphernalia, drug use, and certain types of vandalism get brought to the Dean of Students. Vandalism of vehicles remain “open” or are at times reported to the Hartford Police Department.

There were six separate incidents on April 2nd — a Tuesday — involving liquor law violations. All of these were handled by the Dean of Students.

An attempted rape reported at Psi Upsilon on April 24 was brought to the Sexual Assault Response Team. In March, a sexual assault in the Jones Hall dorm did get reported to the HPD. On April 22nd, a first or second degree assault occurred in the context of relationship/dating violence. It happened off campus and was also dealt with by the Sexual Assault Response Team, not the Hartford Police Department.

In fact, the Hartford Police Department was involved in only a few incidents — one involving a fire hydrant, another involving a stolen laptop, and following thefts of a GPS and power tool from vehicles. In early March, after a student punched another student at the Alpha Delta Phi house on Vernon Street, the police were called and the Dean of Students became involved. At the end of March, a third degree assault in Vernon Place, a residential building, also resulted in HPD involvement, but the trend clearly steers toward not bringing the HPD onto campus.

While much was made by the media of an apparently unresolved assault involving a Trinity student who was off campus last year, none of the assaults — completed or attempted occurring in 2013 have made headlines.

Will this new substation at Broad Street and New Britain Avenue mean that the law will be enforced when students break it, or will most matters continue to be dealt with privately?