Black and Latino residents in University City feel the weight of police presence

If you were to start your workday in University City by arriving at 30th Street Station, then walking along Market Street for a few blocks before turning toward Penn, you would have been subjected to at least seven separate and overlapping police patrols.

The jurisdictions you would have passed through are: SEPTA and Amtrak Police, Penn and Drexel Police, unarmed University City District public safety, and the 16th and 18th Districts of the Philadelphia Police Department. University City is blanketed with police officers, and Black and Latino residents feel it every day.

The police’s larger presence here is not entirely condemned or welcomed by residents; feelings can be mixed. But what is clear is that the police’s presence often feels overwhelming to the neighborhood’s most marginalized people.

Nearly 20 years ago, the University of Pennsylvania convened its leadership to make a decision that would shape the future of the university and West Philadelphia. After two Penn community members were killed in 1994 and 1996, the university decided to take significant steps that would make its students and faculty feel more secure. The university considered several courses of action, even including moving its campus out of West Philadelphia altogether.

Ultimately, Penn decided to stay in University City. It committed to a broad, long-term neighborhood revitalization plan that aimed to make the neighborhood safer. Penn has since invested in development projects that have expanded its footprint into the surrounding neighborhood, like restaurants, a hotel, and academic buildings.

It also invested in its police force; Penn currently has the largest privately funded police force in the state with more than 120 officers. Drexel’s police force is much smaller, with about a third as many officers, but it has only been in operation since 2010.

Tamika Diggs, a Black woman who has lived in University City her entire life and works in the area too, has noticed that investment.

“There has been a change in the 30-something years that I’ve been in University City,” she said. “Initially, there was just a regular police department. You didn’t really see a large police presence. However, as more gentrification happened … more Black and brown families were pushed out of the area, you [saw a surge] of more police,” she said.

“You certainly feel a sense of surveillance,” said Christopher Rogers, a Black Ph.D. student at Penn. Rogers feels a tangible difference in how much he is watched and perceived by law enforcement in University City as compared with elsewhere in Philadelphia.

He described the burden of the police’s presence more as an everyday “weight,” as opposed to having excessive confrontations with them.

The weight comes not just from the patrolling officers but the other parts of the overall security ecosystem, such as the UPennAlert texting system constantly reminding its community members of criminal activity, or the list of more than 200 active outdoor CCTV cameras, many of which go beyond campus and into the University City neighborhood.

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According to Drexel Police’s daily crime log, from Aug. 11 to Oct. 11 of this year, its officers responded to 200 total incidents. Almost 40% of those incidents occurred off-campus.

“It just creates this sense of University City as being threatened by [what is] outside of it,” Rogers said.

Gigi Varlotta, a Latinx senior at Penn who lives off-campus, feels the police’s presence constantly.

“Everywhere in University City, everywhere you go — whether it be the cops or [other forms of police] — on every block, you know there is someone there ‘keeping the peace,’” they said. Varlotta is a member of Police Free Penn, a police abolitionist group that has called for the dissolution of Penn’s police force.

Varlotta first started organizing around policing issues after a Penn police officer tried to physically knock them off a skateboard while they were skating through campus. Varlotta reported the incident to Penn police, but nothing happened.

Some Black and Latino people in the University City area have conflicted feelings about the police. With crime and violence on the rise citywide, it can sometimes feel comforting to have additional eyes and ears on alert. But those fleeting feelings of comfort and security exist within a larger, historical context of police violence, harassment, and discrimination.

“You certainly feel a sense of surveillance.”

Diggs said it’s rare that University City District security officers offer to walk her home at night, but she’s seen them quick to help college students or non-Black people. “They have a target of who they’re supposed to [integrate] themselves with, and it won’t be us.”

The major police departments operating in University City have all acknowledged harmful policing practices over the last few years, particularly since the murder of George Floyd.

Drexel published a report reviewing its public safety practices, which was conducted with public safety experts and sought feedback from University City community members and led to policy changes for greater transparency and promoting antiracist training.

“We understand that safety can feel different among members of our campus community and surrounding neighbors,” said Drexel Public Safety in a statement in response to this article. Drexel referenced its new Public Oversight Committee as evidence that the university is seeking to improve its relationship with the surrounding community.

Penn commissioned a similar review of its practices. The investigation and ensuing report recommended a greater transparency and accountability for police officers, as well as an ambitious reimagining of public safety and reallocation of its funding; it is unclear whether many of the recommendations have been acted upon.

“Safety is very much a feeling, not just a collection of statistics,” said Penn Public Safety in a statement. “To that end, at Penn we seek out feedback from all members of the community we serve. We attend community meetings and events, provide reporting options on our website, and have a commanding officer dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion and community engagement.”

But investigations and promises can’t undo firmly entrenched problems, and they so far haven’t changed the way Black and Latino residents of University City feel about the police.

Diggs has made sure to teach her teenage sons to be careful of how they present in public for that very reason. “I always tell them — my youngest is 6-foot-3 — ‘You are not looked at as a teenager by [University City District], Drexel, any police officers. … You’re looked at as a grown man. And so when you walk outside, you have to act accordingly.’”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an unattributed quote.