This fall marked the first year for one safety official and the last for another. With the arrival of Vice President for University Safety Rocco DelMonaco over the summer and the departure of Department of Public Safety Director Darryl Harrison set for May, the past eight months have ushered in a period of transition.

Harrison said that, coming into the year, his biggest concern was setting up a plan to handle a live shooter scenario like the one that occurred at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Georgetown took a step in that direction with the implementation of a new emergency notification system, which sends out personal alerts via e-mail and cell phone. Although the system had been in the works since before the shooting, the system came with strong campus support, especially after last year’s shooting at Virginia Tech. However, now, at the end of the year, only one-third of the campus has signed up.

Another of Harrison’s major projects, which began last year, was the implementation of a security camera system on campus. In 1999, when he was a new member of the administrative side of campus safety, Harrison said there were no security cameras on campus — “not one.”

Now, DelMonaco and DPS have spent DelMonaco’s first year vamping up the security camera system with recommendations about the placement and number of security cameras on campus. Harrison said the university plans to continue adding cameras until there are around 175 to 200.

The university has also installed a new communications center in the DPS office. The center monitors campus security cameras, alarms and other security systems and uses a new security camera technology called “intelligent video” that uses sensors to detect movement in specific areas of campus and display it on screen for the DPS office to assess.

Although the year will end with Harrison stepping away from his desk, it began with a new face at the head of campus safety. DelMonaco, who came in with the lofty goal of decreasing crime on campus, outlined specific goals to THE HOYA in August, including consolidating Georgetown’s three transport systems and professionalizing the Department of Public Safety.

DelMonaco achieved his first goal at the very beginning of the year, when he, along with the Student Safety Advisory Board, coordinated SafeRides, the Shuttle and the Alpha Phi Omega van under one desk and one phone number.

Negotiations to provide DPS officers with batons, mace and extra vests were settled over the summer before DelMonaco’s arrival; now, DPS is in the midst of training its officers to use them. Harrison said that DPS will be carrying batons and mace by the beginning of the coming school year.

Another issue the administration had to address this year was the string of burglaries and assaults in the first semester, which led to several laptop thefts. Although most of the burglaries occurred in residences with unlocked doors, at least two involved a door remained broken even after it was reported to Facilities.

The safety department also came under criticism for two widely publicized alleged hate crimes in the fall. When it took the university three weeks to notify the university community about the first incident and four days for the second, several on campus, led by GU Pride, called the safety department irresponsible. The movement led to the creation of a working group that works to streamline bias incident reporting. DelMonaco said the university now sends out notifications about all bias-related incidents although it is not required to.

“We go beyond Clery [legislation regulating requirements for universities to report crimes] requirements,” he said. “We wanted to take that extra step.”

Jack Harrison (SFS ’09) said that while these incidents became the most high-profile cases, they were by no means unique on Georgetown’s campus.

“I’ve been aware of a lot more in the past that went unreported,” he said. “I just hear of a lot incidences on Friday and Saturday nights where people who look LGBTQ are verbally abused while walking back from parties. I know there’s been pushing and blowing smoke in people’s faces. These were not things to put people in hospital, but there’s always been a lot of homophobia on campus.”

One of DelMonaco’s goals for the coming year is to increase the size of DPS to reduce the amount of overtime officers work to keep a full staff around the clock. DelMonaco, a former police patrol officer himself, said he understands the stress of the job.

“You are not as effective as you can be as an individual if you work too much overtime,” he said. His goal is for officers to only work overtime when they want to. “It’s going to really help,” he said.

Harrison sees pay, training and equipment as ways to recruit and retain the additional officers DelMonaco would like on the force.

“We are going to continue to go out and recruit and train the best officers we can,” he said.

Harrison said that managing DPS has been “challenging but rewarding.”

“My very first day [after retiring], I’ll probably sit back and think about Georgetown,” Harrison said. “I’m sure it will hit me that I’m no longer the director of DPS.”

With six candidates remaining from a field of 50 applicants, the search for the new director is wrapping up with an announcement expected by the end of May.

“Between those six, you could flip a coin,” Harrison said.

— Hoya Staff Writer Yoshi Myers contributed to this report.