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Faces of Brown: Capt. Emil Fioravanti
The new captain will be heavily involved in implementing the recommendations made by the Bratton Group.
 “Making the community safe.”
“Working in partnership with the community.”
Capt. Emil
Fioravanti uses such phrases repeatedly in describing his objectives as the new
second-in-command of Brown’s Department of Public Safety.
Hired this
past August to succeed Capt. Rick Zaccardi, who retired, Fioravanti will be
heavily involved in implementing the recommendations made by the Bratton Group,
a security consulting firm hired last spring to
gather information about campus safety and to make recommendations for
improvements. The consultants, led by former New York City Police Commissioner
William Bratton, completed what President Simmons has termed “an
intensive and exhaustive review” of Brown’s security efforts,
culminating in a report she released on May 8. (The Bratton report is
online at www.brown.edu/webmaster/reports/.
Only members of the Brown community have access to the report.)
Fioravanti
has 26 years of experience working with the Providence Police Department in a
variety of capacities ranging from patrolling and investigative work to
training and implementing administrative changes. He also has spent six years
as an adjunct professor teaching criminalistics at several Rhode Island
colleges and universities. The position at Brown intrigued him because it
seemed to be a good match for his skills. “A lot of administrative ideas
I have coincide” with the recommendations made in the Bratton report,
Fioravanti said.
Among the recommendations foremost in Fioravanti’s
mind are increasing police visibility on campus, improving reporting
mechanisms, and greater dialogue with members of the community.
Members
of the Bratton group also recommended arming the Brown police. In her e-mail,
Simmons wrote that “we do not intend to decide on any of the
recommendations concerning arming campus police officers until we have had a
full discussion of that issue on campus. … I am hoping that you will
continue to be forthcoming with your views on the difficult decision we will
make this year on arming policies.”
“I’ve
taken for granted that I was always armed,” Fioravanti says of his service with
the Providence Police Department. “Now that I’m not armed, I know I
must approach things very differently and with a great deal more caution, as
disengagement was never an option.” – Tracie Sweeney
Bratton action steps
President Simmons’ Sept. 10 e-mail noted a number
of action steps being taken on the Bratton report recommendations, including:
•
Increasing the strength of the campus police officer (CPO) force over the
summer. “Over the past year we increased the number of CPOs on our force
by 43 percent to 23,” she wrote.
•
“We are drafting new policies that will ensure that officers are deployed
to areas of greatest need and that will result in the greater visibility of
officers on campus. For example, we will be moving away from the practices of
officers patrolling residence halls and responding to students' requests to
unlock residence hall rooms. We expect to shift the responsibility for
responding to room-entry requests primarily to the residential life staff,
providing increased opportunities for officers to patrol the campus and
surrounding streets and to respond to emergency situations.”
•
“We will be improving post descriptions, modifying police patrol modes,
maintaining activity logs of daily patrol activities, and redesigning the
current field-interview form for ease of use by the officers.”
•
“The expansion of the bike patrol is in process, and bicycle racks will
soon be installed on some of the police vehicles to give officers greater
ability to vary patrols.”
•
“Improved management of officer discipline cases and complaints against
officers, as well as an improved investigative-case assignment and management
system, will soon be employed.”
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