Just four days into his new job as Syracuse University’s Chief of Public Safety, Robert “Bobby” Maldonado got an unexpected phone call.

Renate Simson, a professor in SU’s African American studies department, was teaching a section of AAS 138: “Writing About Black Culture,” over the summer and, at the behest of her students, wanted Maldonado to answer some tough questions.

On July 19, a week prior to the phone call, a University of Cincinnati officer shot and killed Samuel DuBose, an unarmed man, during a minor traffic stop. The incident made national headlines and it was the first time the national conversation about race and police brutality directly related to a college campus, Simson said.

“What about us?”

“Do we have body cameras?”

“Could this happen on our campus?”

Simson didn’t know the answers to these questions from her students, but she thought Maldonado would. Without hesitation, Maldonado told Simson he would come into her class and talk to her students. They set a date, about a week later, for Maldonado to do a Q&A with the class.

The most powerful police officer on campus willingly submitted himself to be cross-examined by a room full of students, many of whom are activists. This is just part of Maldonado’s larger leadership strategy, especially after the recent high-profile killings of unarmed black men, like Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray, have strained police relations with the African-American community and brought rise to the national “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Maldonado’s strategy as Chief of DPS, a position he took over in July, involves emphasizing community policing by building and maintaining positive relationships with students. All armed DPS officers will start wearing body cameras on Oct. 1. Although Maldonado was not there to make the decision to get body cameras, he said he supports the decision.

“As a police executive, I think it’s up to me, really, to set the tone for the department so that the police officers who work at SU recognize that community policing is more than a slogan, it’s more than something on the side of a car,” Maldonado said.

First and foremost, this approach toward managing and leading DPS is predicated on effective communication, a skill that Maldonado has all but mastered during his long career in law enforcement and higher education.

Unassuming and soft-spoken, with a strong New York City accent, Maldonado does not look or sound like a macho police officer when he discusses his vision for DPS.

“My desire is to make sure that people understand what the real mission is here and how important I think community policing is and a peacekeeping role is,” Maldonado said.

In that same vein, Maldonado added that diversity is an important component of community policing.

“There’s an educational aspect when police departments start to populate with people of color,” he said. “Police departments should reflect the community in which they serve.”

Two of Maldonado’s three children, Carly and Lorenzo, are currently students at SU. However, this did not factor into Maldonado’s decision to come here, he said.

Maldonado started his career in law enforcement as a young college graduate in the late ’70s interested in criminal justice, but unable to afford law school. After applying for and being accepted by both the New York City Police Department and the New York State Police Department, Maldonado chose to move away from his birthplace, the Bronx, in order to work for the NYSP in Rochester.

“I wanted to branch out and leave New York City,” Maldonado said. “I thought that if I joined the NYPD, I was going to be limited to New York City for the rest of my career.”

Eventually, Maldonado worked his way up to lead the NYSP Bureau of Criminal Investigations in Rochester, New York. After that, he served as deputy chief of the Rochester Police Department, the superintendent of the Monroe County Jail and, in 2006, the director of campus safety at Nazareth College, which was his previous job before coming to SU.

Since 1998, Maldonado taught criminal justice courses as an adjunct professor at the Rochester Institute for Technology. It was at RIT and Nazareth that he learned both how to communicate and connect with students, he said.

Using his experience, policing philosophy and communication skills, Maldonado went into Simson’s AAS 138 class prepared and determined to talk and form non-adversarial relationships with students, even amidst exploding tensions between police and the African-American community.

Everyone, including Simson, liked and even bonded with Maldonado.

“He understood how they felt and he understood the importance of recognizing the feelings and concerns that young black men have about these issues,” Simson said. “He was thoughtful and considerate and professional. I was very impressed.”

By the end of the class, Maldonado had listened to the frustrations of students firsthand, talked about his peacekeeping policing philosophy and committed to meeting with student groups on campus.

“I want faculty and staff to understand that I’m accessible and I think it’s important that I communicate consistently with students especially,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.”

Published on August 31, 2015 at 11:48 pm

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu