A community meeting at St. Mary’s College conducted by the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday featured a lively dialogue about crime, several items in the sheriff’s budget and security at the college. Sheriff Tim Cameron and members of his staff gave presentations. The majority of the dozen people in attendance were members of the sheriff’s Citizen Advisory Board.
Also in attendance was Sean Tallarico, the college’s recently hired director of public safety. Tallarico told the attendees that he would like to move his force towards having full police powers. Tallarico was safety director at Moravian College in Pennsylvania for 25 years and he said in that position he had full police powers and carried a gun.
When asked how the campus would react if someone with a gun was on campus, Tallarico said now he would tell his men to get as far away from that as possible, because it would be a situation of an armed person against an unarmed police force. Tallarico did say, however, that he is licensed to carry a gun and as a sworn officer it would be hard from him to walk away from the situation.
The safety director said the sheriff’s department would be called in that situation. Sheriff Cameron said police officers would quickly descend on the campus. He said it would take about seven minutes for an officer to get to the campus from Lexington Park but the response would likely be quicker from his deputies assigned to Sector J, which is south of Hermanville Road.
Tallarico said he didn’t think he would have been hired if the college didn’t want him to move in the direction of full police powers, including the same training as other police officers in the county. He said he would have to move slowly to navigate towards that end. “It is what parents now expect of a level of security for their children.”
Tallarico said the college not only notifies the students by e-mail or text if there is a problem on campus, but also sends a parallel message to their parents. There is a hotline for parents to call to check on the safety of their children. “Parents need to take an active role in what they expect to get,” he added.
Lt. Eric Sweeney is the supervisor in charge of Sector J. He said in his area in 2012 there were 144 assaults, 65 burglaries (of which 26 were from unlocked residences), 28 CDS arrests, three rapes and two robberies. Of the 96 thefts during the year, 31 were from motor vehicles, which prompted Cameron to say that is his department’s number one problem.
Sweeney said during 2012 there one assault, one CDS complaint, one anonymous sexual assault complaint, and three thefts on campus.
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