Temple police expand patrol grid, as students cover more ground

Temple police are patrolling more streets around the university’s North Philadelphia campus.

The expanded zone is designed to keep students safer and recognizes the university’s growth, direct and indirect.

Longtime neighborhood residents have seen the change from their front steps.

“When we first moved here, this was mostly families and what have you. And we had some Temple students you know and it grew over the years,” said Estelle Wilson, who has lived in the same house near 15th and Norris Streets for 60 plus years.

The influx of students into private apartments has been particularly noticeable west of Broad Street. In response, Temple police have added two more blocks, from 16th to 18th Streets, to their patrol zone.

“The students were asking questions like, ‘How are you going to keep us safe out here?'” said Charles Leone, executive director of Campus Safety Services at Temple University.

Leone said during the day police do traffic control and pro-active patrols. But as night falls he said, the job changes.

“Into the evening and overnight hours then we start getting into drinking, being more vulnerable to crime because often times being intoxicated — putting themselves at risk,” he said. “So they’ll do a lot of proactive patrol there and maybe some selective enforcement as far as alcohol and things of that nature.”

Leone said since 2011, Temple has been paying the Philadelphia police to cover areas where students lived but that fell outside of the university’s old patrol zone.

The new patrol zone runs from 9th to 18th Streets and Jefferson Street to Susquehanna Avenue.