Oxford Police Department launched a new program on the Square with the goal of promoting safety, providing protection and decreasing crime for its downtown patrons.
OPD officers sit in the safe zone area in front of the Visitors Center on the Square. Photo by Anna Hayward
The Safe Site tent will be in front of Visit Oxford on the Square on Wednesday through Saturday each week from 8 p.m. until 45 minutes after bars close.
“Anywhere from 4,000 to 7,000 people are in that area on a really hopping weekend,” said OPD Maj. Jeff McCutchen.
Uniformed officers will assist anyone who feels unsafe, needs help to find transportation, wants an escort to his or her vehicle or requires any other police assistance.
“Every supervisor has their own style. If I’m out, I may handle public drunks a certain way,” McCutchen said. “I may have a very small tolerance with my staff and say, ‘If they’re causing problems, go get him, take to him jail.’ But the next guy may come in and say, ‘If they’re not fighting and if we can give him a ride, we give him a ride.’ We want a consistent answer down there.”
Employing four different patrol shifts, OPD hopes to eventually streamline downtown activity with consistent responses.
“How can we ask people to behave a certain way if our standards change every night? This team was designed so that we can have a set kind of standards and expectations. That was a thing we wanted to clean up on our end,” McCutchen said.
The site officers intend to allow individuals to have fun as long as they are not drawing attention to themselves by causing problems.
“Don’t cause problems, don’t steal from the bar and don’t fight. You’re going to get home,” McCutchen said. “The majority of the people go in and have a good time and get home on their own.”
The department plans on developing ways to make the Safe Site more noticeable and welcoming. They are currently working with a design company to customize an event tent and are considering colored lights to catch a passerby’s eye.
“A lot of times with law enforcement, it looks very serious,” McCutchen said. “We want it to be more inviting, so we want to get more lighting over there. We’re working on a tent and some other designs that will be more engaging for someone to come up and feel safe who are either underage or have been drinking.”
Safe Site developed from OPD’s “Meet Me” locations during Double Decker. When children are lost, parents can wait at the Meet Me spot while officers search for the lost child.
McCutchen said the Safe Site tent is a place where a person can come if separated from his or her group of friends. Square employees, too, approached OPD about fear of walking to their vehicles alone, so it will become a remedy for that, as well.
According to McCutchen, OPD hopes to see a reduction in crimes like assault, robbery, auto burglary and public drunkenness.
“Another reason this is important is perception. A lot of people think we are up there to arrest people,” McCutchen said. “I assure you we’re not. We are there for protection.”
McCutchen said he hopes this first semester will bring a lot of traffic to the site.
Nevertheless, the department’s goal is to grow the site and improve engagement with the community.
OPD police vehicles are parked in front of the safe zone area in front of the Visitors Center on the Square on Wednesday. Photo by Anna Hayward
“Our goal is that they begin to give us more information,” he said. “The more feedback we can get, the better we can police and meet needs.”
OPD Officer Cody Pruitt said several parents asked about the new Safe Site and how their kids could get rides home.
“We explained we’re not giving rides home. We can help flag down a taxi or they can wait for an Uber here,” Pruitt said.
Carl Baker is the sergeant of the downtown district of Oxford and said the centralized location is a place where everyone knows police will be.
“Anytime that you have alcohol involved in a situation or you have a lot of people in one place, that gives you the potential for things to happen,” Baker said. “So we want to give that avenue for people if anything does happen or even if they feel unsafe. It’ll give them somewhere to go.”
During the first two weekends of its use, Safe Site appears to be a success, as numerous people have used the location to flag down a ride.
“If we’re helping one, two, three people a night — at the end of the year, that’s a lot of people over a semester time where they didn’t get arrested, where they didn’t get hurt,” McCutchen said. “That’s a win for us.”
