Riding with Montgomery

For students, having Steve Montgomery come to the door is probably not the highlight of a weekend evening. But for Allston-Brighton residents looking for a good night's sleep, he may be the most welcome sight they see. As part of an exclusive look into the off-campus policing situation, Heights editors accompanied Montgomery on one of his nightly routes from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. The off-campus community liaison, better known as the "off-campus RA," Montgomery patrols the streets around Boston College each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, looking to keep the neighborhood noise to a dull roar. Whether that entails cautionary warnings issued to students as he drives by, or breaking up parties at residences, Montgomery maintains an important presence in off-campus life - a presence that mediates and often mitigates the interaction between rowdy students, upset neighbors, and local police. While students may question the source from which Montgomery derives his authority, having him in such a position can also work to students' benefit. A run-in with Montgomery sends students to the dean in cases where they might otherwise find themselves face-to-face with the Boston College Police Department (BCPD) and the Boston Police (BPD). "My goal is just to let students know that neighbors off campus are being impacted," Montgomery says as we set off from campus in his maroon Ford Explorer. It's 10 p.m. on a Friday night in November and "Weekend BC" is just waking up for a night on the party prowl. Montgomery acknowledges that tonight might be quieter than usual, however - midterms, he says, do put a damper on the party scene. "I'm generally out between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. although depending on activity, it is sometimes as late as 4 or 5 a.m.," he says. Rain, snow, or bitter cold often keep students in as well, leading to more tranquil evenings. Contrary to what many students believe, Montgomery is not out to quell all weekend fun - just the "fun" that he deems unnecessarily noisy and disruptive. "It's about keeping the community happy," he says. "The ability to enjoy yourself in your own apartment is contingent upon the happiness of your neighbors. We don't want to mediate or control quality of life, but we do want to all get on the same page as far as noise goes." As if to demonstrate this principle, Montgomery pauses momentarily outside a house on a street close to Upper Campus. A small group of people is walking up the front steps, talking among themselves, and the noise a dull murmur. A blacklight pulses in an upstairs bedroom. "So we can see there's some activity going on here," Montgomery says, "but it's not loud." He drives on, but says that the house is now on his "to-watch" list. Any such house that attracts similar activity gets mentally noted. "I try to be proactive in my response," Montgomery says, noting the presence of a large Jewish population outside of BC's borders. They won't call in a noise complaint because of the Sabbath, he says, but they still may be bothered by rowdy students. As we drive away from Upper Campus down Commonwealth Avenue toward Gerald Road, Foster Street, and Kirkwood Road, Montgomery says that sometimes the noise of students coming and going is more disruptive than noise at a single location. The intermittent noises - the whoops and the shouts - are at times the main disturbance. "There's something of a group mentality," he says, that makes students so noisy. So far we've been out for about an hour. It's still rather quiet, although Montgomery now has several houses flagged. His approach, he says, is to anticipate and find noise that might provoke calls from residents to BCPD and BPD - he'd rather be the first responded in these situations to spare students from having to deal with the police. When Montgomery does find a noisy party, he "interacts with people, collects the residents, makes sure the noise is off, and tells people to wrap things up." The official outcome, he says, is a report to the dean's office - usually just a warning. When police are summoned in a similar situation, students might not get off so lightly, he says. We've come back to the house Montgomery noted earlier by Upper Campus. The blacklight still visible, there is now a slight buzz of noise coming from the house as more students traipse in and out. Montgomery puts the car into park as we idle in front, waiting and listening. "You also have to think about whether the noise might be louder to the houses behind," he says. "Maybe we just can't hear the noise from the road." As a small group begins to coalesce in front of the house, the door swings open, and intermittent noise levels escalate - although there are no persistently loud sounds emanating from the house itself. But Montgomery determines it's time to pay a visit to the residents, and we diligently accompany him up the house steps. Party's over. With an urgent knocking, Montgomery walks right in the open door, calling out for the residents to come downstairs. He cordially introduces himself, takes the four residents' ID numbers down. While the music shuts off and people trickle out the back door, Montgomery explains to the residents that there have been noise complaints called in for this area before and that the group is being written up for a noise violation. Their names will be given to the dean in a comprehensive report submitted by Montgomery. No mention of alcohol takes place. The report, however, contains testimony to the contrary; the residents later tell us that in addition to being written up for noise, two of them have also received citations for possession and/or use of alcohol. Because these were merely warnings, there was no need for the residents to dispute the charges. But that didn't leave them feeling the charges were justified. "There was no communication between us and Steve Montgomery that we would be charged with alcohol," said resident Evan Henderson, A&S '09. "The dean decides the punishment based on the report he submits, which apparently said there were beer cans on our steps. But he seemed to make sure we didn't know this was being noted, otherwise we would have debated it right there. It seemed as though he was withholding this information from us on what would be reported." The two residents were singled out because they were not 21, said Henderson. "And people left out the back door which meant that Montgomery couldn't put into the report who was there, if they were drinking, and how old they were. The 21-year-old residents were not charged with supplying to minors because there was no evidence of underage drinking," he said. Montgomery, in an e-mail, said he bases his reports purely on observations he gleans from the residence. "As I cannot give specific details, I can tell you that all my reports are an attempt to document my observations from the time I approach the house to the time I leave. Also, any conversation I have with the students who reside at the address and their guests is noted. "In addition, I list the reason for my report, whether I received a call or responded proactively, and who was with me at the location." As to the question of alcohol, it may or may not be observed by me in the form of kegs, bottles, cans, or plastic cups inside or outside the premise. "ODSD reviews my reports quickly and in detail with the residents during daylight hours and gives the students the opportunity to agree, disagree, or present their own version of the event," he explained. Henderson contends that the charge came as a surprise; Montgomery says the report from which the dean issues the charge comes purely from observation. Whether there were beer cans or not, there was never any verbal exchange that occurred between Montgomery and the residents that might indicate this outcome of events. "Steve Montgomery is really the eyes and ears of the University. It isn't his job to tell people what they're being documented for," said Interim Dean for Student Development Paul Chebator. "We ask him to document what he sees and hears, and based on the report, we decide if it warrants having a conversation with the students and give them the chance to respond. It's the dean's job to determine the charges; he does not know who is 21 or who isn't 21 when he writes a report." In Henderson's case, since the outcome was only a warning, there was no need to contest the charges. But if something larger were at stake, Chebator said they would have the right to ask for a hearing. "In this case, if there had been formal discipline on the line, [the alcohol charges] would not have been a good conclusion for us to reach," he said. "There needs to be enough evidence to suggest underage drinking." As the night progresses, it becomes clear as we drive along how familiar Montgomery is with these neighborhoods. He points out notorious "problem houses" - they've earned that designation either through his unpleasant interactions with residents in the past, or simply through their size and location that make them conducive to large parties. He explains the trouble caused by "shared walls," a common feature of tightly packed row houses and apartments, which essentially eliminates a noise buffer space in between residences. He nods toward the bus stops - "They're always a hub of activity." Montgomery insists that his only goal is to change the behavior of students, making them more aware of the consequences suffered by the neighborhood when noise becomes a permanent feature of the weekend scene. "I'll only bring someone else in if I have to visit a house a second time in one night or if it's a house that has been uncooperative before," he says. "Arrests are unlikely unless residents are very uncooperative. Police are just called to be instruments of change - in cases where I am ineffective." And Montgomery is quick to recognize those "uncooperative" houses. On our third loop around the Kirkwood vicinity, we hear shouts and whoops seeming to come from such a house. Montgomery parks but doesn't go to the door - since he's encountered problems here before, he immediately requests back-up. Two police cruisers, with six cops, arrive within minutes. With flashlights in hand, the police officers and Montgomery split up with us in tow, encircling the house until the two groups meet up around the back. But it appears as though this house is not the source of the noise - it's actually coming from the next street over, in housing of non-BC students. We loop back toward campus; Montgomery rolls down the window and politely but firmly calls out to stop two male students poised to urinate in someone's yard. He asks a group of students congregated in the middle of the street to head indoors - one student recognizes Montgomery and reaches through the window to high-five him. "Hey Steve," he says, "I haven't been drinking at all tonight." The alcohol on his breath hangs in the air as Montgomery pulls away. "Do you believe him at all?" he says chuckling. Another student walks by us at a stoplight carrying an open can of beer - a serious offense if seen by the police. Montgomery asks him to dump it out and throw it in the nearest trash can. "Just hold it upside down so people can see that it's empty," he says. Montgomery maintains the same air of straightforward brusqueness in dealing with these students, who seem to be falling all over themselves with thank-yous. "Don't thank me," he says, "just don't do it again." Down by Foster, we run into a resident well-known to Montgomery, out for an evening stroll to "investigate" the shouts he heard coming from the streets. It is this area that immediately borders Brighton Campus, with people heavily disputing a proposed University residential outgrowth on the newly purchased land. The neighborhood, as it stands, is heavily student-populated - building residence halls on Brighton Campus would take more students out of the neighborhood and place them back within BC's borders where they would be under the supervision of Residential Life officials. The resident, like the majority of the neighborhood, remains strongly opposed to this construction. "BC has made promises before and broke them," he says. "People feel like they can't trust the school - that's a historical fact." The main argument voiced by the community lies in the belief that building residence halls on Brighton Campus will equate to an extension of the campus into the neighborhood. "If dorms get built and students continue to live off campus, it doesn't solve the problem. If 100 percent are living on campus, then it would. But having the dorms on Brighton while students are still clustered within the neighborhood … that's the worst of both worlds." In 1985, when the resident and his family moved in, there were no students living in the Gerald Road-Foster Street area. "There were all families living in these homes. Now, there are roughly 400 students living in this area," says the resident. "It's the area that has changed, and people are just fed up with the students. You just don't realize how loud you are. I can see how students would think that people here are uncooperative, but it's a result of a build-up - we're treated badly by students. We feel like we can't always be reasonable."

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