It’s 7 p.m. Monday as he pulls car 596 out of the Boston University Police Department parking lot. ‘Five ninety-six’ he reports back to the station through his radio, ‘requesting route to BU Medical Center.’ After a few crackled responses, the cop car silently lurches onto Commonwealth Avenue looking for trouble.
Officer Patrolman Ciran D’Arcy has been on the force for three-and-a-half years. He drives down the road with his Glock 40-caliber pistol secure at his belt. He’s not wearing a bulletproof vest tonight; just carrying enough electronic equipment to start his own shop.
Unbeknownst to many students, D’Arcy will be patrolling a bit more than just Commonwealth Avenue tonight.
The Boston University campus extends past Kenmore Square it’s been infiltrating other sectors of Boston for years, including the BU Medical Campus. D’Arcy and the other BU police are responsible for cleaning up, as well as trying to prevent any crimes in the area. The medical campus is located on about four city blocks of Harrison Avenue, from Massachusetts Avenue to East Brookline Street.
As he drives by, D’Arcy comments about all the shooting victims who are sent to the center, usually from nearby Roxbury and South End.
‘You’ll see it in the news,’ D’Arcy says. ”A shooting victim was taken to Boston Medical.”
Just minutes before, a call could be heard over his radio for an ambulance. A BU student fallen ill needed to be taken to the BU Medical Center. D’Arcy says it’s not a rare occurrence for students, especially when finals are looming over their heads.
‘They don’t eat, they don’t sleep,’ D’Arcy says. ‘You have to take care of your body.’
And while students must take care of their bodies, becoming a BU police officer is almost as grueling a task. The training currently lasts 22 weeks, where recruits study the laws to a point that ‘when something is going on, [they] know what decision should be made,’ D’Arcy says. Some colleges put their police officers through their own training, but the BUPD officers have to attend the same academy as regular officers.
Since 1992, crime at BU has dropped, according to figures on BUPD’s website. As of 2001, the total number of larcenies was down 29.8 percent.
‘Most of the calls I expect tonight will be prior larcenies,’ D’Arcy says. Part of his job is to follow up on reports of thefts, which he says are mostly laptops and other small personal items.
On a larger scale, the number of motor vehicle thefts is down from 45 in 1992 to six in 2001; an 86.7 percent reduction, according to BUPD.
The number of forcible rapes, of which the victim might be sent to the Boston University Medical Center, has fallen from five in 1992 to zero in 2001, according to BUPD statistics.
Another of D’Arcy’s duties is teaching the rape aggression defense course at BU. Students can sign up for the course on the BUPD website.
After scoping out the medical campus, D’Arcy maneuvers the car until it’s pointed toward the center of the city. The car then slices through the Public Gardens and the Boston Common, while D’Arcy does a little reminiscing about one of his more interesting downtown discoveries.
A few years back, a country club right outside Boston held a golf tournament and a couple people had too much to drink. At about 3 p.m., two drunk men in their late 40s stole a golf cart and drove it all the way into the heart of the city, D’Arcy says.
The two didn’t get caught until about 11 p.m., closing out an eight-hour joy ride in a vehicle designed to tote old men over grassy hills not weave drunkards through busy intersections.
‘We called up the country club and said, ‘We’ve got your golf cart out here,” D’Arcy recalls. ‘I would have thought it would run out of energy.’
Much like the cart, the BUPD keeps going. The force always has four cars and five officers on the prowl at any given time, not including Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire, who frequents both the station and the streets.
D’Arcy spins the nose of the car up and over Beacon Hill, as people wonder why the BUPD is so far away from home. Just over the crest of the Hill, at 23 Beacon St., the lights of a City Convenience store illuminate the street.
BU owns that, too, as well as its sister store that students pass when they walk to go shopping on Newbury Street.
Because BU owns both establishments, D’Arcy and the other officers have jurisdiction over anything happening inside of them. Occasionally, D’Arcy and company need to respond to a false alarm. However, he says things tend to remain relatively quiet.
The same could be said for the Huntington Theater, another BU property, located at 264 Huntington St. When the theater holds a show, the police department must have an officer there for safety.
‘Wherever there is money,’ D’Arcy says, ‘we’re pretty much there.’
Later, as he pulls back onto the BU campus, he receives a call to report to Case Gymnasium where a fight has taken place. Tempers flared and two non-BU students playing basketball grew a little heated, and one has reportedly punched the other in the face, bloodying his gum. The suspect flees on foot, evading D’Arcy and another officer.
A minor incident, but it supports St. Hilaire’s conjecture that most crimes on the BU campus are committed by non-BU students.
The victim doesn’t need medical attention, so they let him go with a warning.
‘You just don’t give a guy who just got punched in the face too hard of a time,’ he says.
After a long night of patrolling the streets, D’Arcy returns to patrol car 596 and pulls the microphone of the radio to his mouth, ‘596, returning to the station.’
He pulls away from the curb with the headlights on, the sirens off and the streets finally quiet.
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