Jeff Kahntroff
Officials from Washington University and University City are in disagreement over the recent increase in police patrols between WU and the Loop.
While they concur in saying that increased patrols were originally due to resident complaints, they differ over which administrators-University City or WU-promoted and engineered the patrol increase, and whether or not there has actually been an increase in complaints from past years.
According to Steve Hoffner, director of operations and overseer of WUPD, WU has identified a significant increase in complaints regarding unruly student behavior south of Delmar.
But Julie Szymula, assistant city manager for University City, disagreed.
“There has been no noticeable increase or decrease [in complaints] from prior years,” Szymula said.
Szymula’s office oversees the University City Police Department.
Frank Ollendorff, the University City city manager, said that WU told him at the beginning of the school year that WUPD would be sending more cars into University City to patrol the off-campus apartment area.
Hoffner disagreed, saying that University City, not WU, has increased their patrols in the area to police student activity.
“About a month ago, [University] City did assign more officers to the area, particularly late-night on weekends. And they were assigned there with the direction to have very little tolerance for [unruly] student behavior,” Hoffner said.
Szymula disagreed on how the “directed patrols” in the heavily student-populated area were told to act, stating that they were not instructed to have “little tolerance.”
“Directed patrols are not given any unique directives,” she said. “All sworn officers are responsible for upholding the laws.”
Hoffner admitted an increase in WUPD cars sent to the area south of Delmar, but said that this increase was not geared towards policing students, but rather to “get a feel for what is going on” and to interact with students, whether or not they were obeying the laws. Hoffner said that was the extent of the university’s involvement in the area.
Complaints of noise and damage are nothing new for neighborhoods that are situated between The Loop and WU.
“Most of the complaints we get are just late night noise,” said Ollendorff. “I’ve been hearing them for 20 years; I don’t think it gets any better or worse.”
According to Hoffner, WU has taken steps to try to change this situation. This year, residents in University-owned off-campus apartments were required to sign a statement agreeing to be good neighbors. WU also threatened to kick disruptive students out of their apartments unless behavior changed.
Hoffner, however, prefers education over punishment.
“Our efforts are primarily in the area of education, and encouraging people to do what you would expect if you were living in a residential neighborhood,” said Hoffner.
Contact Aaron Johnson at
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