Friday, December 16, 2011

A Chief returns

Chief Barbara O'Connor

Former UMass Police Chief Barbara O'Connor, who left UMPD two years ago after 25 years of service, eight of them as Chief, to become University of Illinois Chief, is returning to New England, this time to serve as University of Connecticut's first female police chief and Director of Public Safety.

Some of you locals may remember the UMass riot five years ago where a student dropped a full one gallon jug of liquid off a Southwest high-rise dorm, missing Chief O'Connor by only a few feet--an impact that most certainly would have been fatal.

Certainly can't get any worse at UConn.

The Hartford Courant reports

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The falling jug of liquid has become, for many of us, a symbol of what students are capable in a mob.

Ed said...

Folks won't believe this, but she once tried to recruit me to join the UMPD. I am not making this up, I *think* I have the email somewhere, it was the first year she went to law school.

Be careful of two things Larry -- first, I was on the ETOH Task Force with her back in the '90s and I said something about how come they (then) weren't arresting lots of people -- they do now, a thousand a year -- and her response was something like "isn't it better that we were able to resolve the situation without having to make arrests?"

It was Gargano who wanted the body counts.

Second, UMass & UConn started the '90s in about the same place -- but they are way ahead of us now. Partially state funding, but more how they treat the students. UCONN lets them have *controlled* parties which I think is where Jack Wilson was trying to go, but other than tailgating, it will never happen here...

Ed said...

Anonymous 2:58PM -- have you ever been up in one of those towers? Ever look out the window? You simply can't see what is DIRECTLY below you and while I have to be careful what I say here, but that person got the scare of his/her/its life because, apparently, we don't teach High School Physics anymore and someone didn't quite realize that force is equal to mass TIMES acceleration just as Newton said, except that we aren't talking an apple falling a few feet from a tree.

Then they kicked the WRONG girl out of school for this, and she got five figures of your tax dollars which -- as I pointed out to Enku Galeye -- is why I really would prefer not to have to sue UMass. I just want my life back (and to get the f**k out of this cesspool of a valley...).

Anonymous said...

Hey "Ed"
No one named "Ed" was on the UMass Alcohol Abuse task force with Chief O'Connor.

http://www.umass.edu/senate/fs_docs/SEN_DOC_NO_03-011_ALCOHOL_ABUSE.pdf