Since becoming chief of GWPD three years ago, James Tate has made steady progress in his plan to enhance the safety of the George Washington University community.
Part of the evidence pointing to this conclusion is the increasing number of calls his department receives. Tate is quick to clarify that he doesn’t think more calls mean more trouble on campus now than there was before—the difference is that more people feel comfortable enough to report incidents or problems. And that, he said, “is a good thing.”
Tate firmly believes that public safety increases in direct proportion to the trust community members have in his department and in their engagement with officers. By increasing the transparency, accountability and visibility of GWPD operations, he is working to build that trust and increase engagement.
“I really do think that public safety is everyone’s responsibility,” Tate said.
He is supported in his efforts by a state-of-the-art Security Operations Center (SOC). Located in Ames Hall on the Mount Vernon campus, the SOC is home to the department’s dispatch operations and a room where the more than 3,000 cameras strategically positioned on GW’s campuses can be monitored. (The department’s main location is still in the basement of Phillips Hall on the Foggy Bottom campus, and there is a sub-station at 2145 G St., near Kogan Plaza.)
In the dispatch operations room, three consoles enable dispatchers to monitor all of the university’s emergency calls and alarm systems indicating doors propped open, fire alarms and other concerns. Dispatchers are trained to do a kind of “triage,” Tate said, fielding calls and deciding whether to send GWPD officers or other first responders such as GW’s Emergency Medical Response Group (EMeRG). On one of the several screens they watch, they can call up scenes from individual locations as needed. If necessary, dispatchers can send immediate campus alerts by pushing a button. They also monitor D.C. Metropolitan Police Department radio communications to facilitate a coordinated response if there are incidents on campus.
GW’s campus is not as self-contained as many other campuses, Tate said, and porous boundaries indicate a need for a close relationship with D.C. police.
“We have lots of people from the community traversing the Foggy Bottom campus as they go to and from work,” Tate said. “We have lots of traffic at the State Department, lots of folks at the GW Hospital and people using our parking garages. We have more community members moving on and off this campus than you would typically see on other campuses.”
Adjacent to the dispatch operations room is a virtual monitoring room, where the focus is on multiple screens showing camera feeds across the university’s outdoor public spaces. Specially trained student workers keep an eye on the various camera feeds and alert dispatchers if they see signs of trouble. These student workers are carefully vetted and agree to keep their work confidential.
Under Tate’s leadership, the department has employed students in various capacities. Going forward, Tate plans to hire student outreach liaisons to enhance communication between GWPD and the student body.
“Those students liaisons are crucial to helping us connect with their peers,” Tate said. “They know the students much better than we do or I do. They certainly know social media better than I do.”
Several other innovations have been instituted since Tate assumed command of the department. He interacts with students in a series of events such as Coffee with the Chief (a monthly open house which students can sign up for online) and Raise High with GWPD, miniature festivals with food, fun and music. A departmental newsletter is emailed to students monthly, and community feedback is encouraged through a form available at go.gwu.edu/publicsafety. Self-defense courses are also offered to students.
Officers are now receiving advanced training comparable to the training given to other police officers in the region to help them de-escalate situations and respond to mental health concerns.
“Now, when we get a mental health call in which there’s no active attempt to do harm,” he said, “emergency medical personnel take the lead, and we may wait in the lobby or outside the building until or in case we’re needed. That’s a much better approach.”
Another important enhancement has been equipping officers with body-worn cameras, which have become a staple in police departments across the nation.
“Having good policies around that piece of equipment goes a long way to establishing transparency, accountability and trust,” Tate said. “A body-worn camera allows us to get ahead of issues before they become problems.”
Department cars, formerly white with stripes, are now black and white and their running lights are kept on to make them more visible.
“They stand out more,” Tate said. “You can see that patrol car from a distance, when you couldn't see it before. The public can easily recognize them and find help if they need it. We want them visible, because sometimes just being visible is a deterrent.”
In addition to officers, an experienced group of supervisory staff helps to lead the department, coming from police departments and other agencies across the country. There are about 20 total persons, including Tate, in this group.
In that group, Tate said, are former detectives, police academy instructors, school resource officers and individuals with specialized experience, including from the FBI academy and many aspects of law enforcement training. “And this is the group that we've identified to be the armed supervisory officers moving forward.” The university is currently soliciting feedback from the community about the implementation planning for arming supervisory officers, which will likely occur by the fall.
All of these armed officers will be required to have completed training at an accredited police academy, as well as an additional 56-hour firearms course with training on nonlethal force and police accountability. Also required is in-service training on defensive tactics, use-of-force policies, de-escalation skills and implicit bias.
Tate is continuing to seek feedback from the community, and especially from students, on the university’s arming implementation plans, including protocols for armed officer response.
As part of his commitment to transparency, Tate has posted online the annual statistics showing the number of complaints that have been filed against officers, and has been pleased to see the number of complaints lessen in his time at GW.
“I'm proud of the fact that we've captured this information for the last three years,” Tate said. “And those numbers continue to fall in terms of the complaints against police. I'd like to get it down to zero.”
When considering what more than three decades of experience in law enforcement have taught him, Tate said, “I've learned that there is no substitute for collaboration. There is no substitute for community engagement. There is no substitute for trust. Those are things that we have to work at every single day. I think that is part of the fabric of the GW community, which is a good thing.”