Behind The Badge:

In another life, Brianna Witherspoon is standing on the sidelines, proudly waving poms poms as one of the Temple Owls’ cheerleaders. One of her treasured mementos is a picture of her as a young child wearing a Temple cheerleading uniform, as her pride for the institution was instilled in her early by her father, Steve Witherspoon, a former Temple University police officer who now works as a facilities superintendent at the university.

Witherspoon ultimately never ended up donning a Temple cheerleading uniform, but her pride for the cherry and white remains as strong as ever. Rather than cheering for the Owls on the sidelines, she instead has found herself on the front lines.

Witherspoon works as a dispatcher within Campus Safety Services at Temple University. Working within the Communications Center, which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, she helps to monitor and coordinate responses to more than 1,000 surveillance cameras, Code Blue emergency phones, our walking escort program, elevator emergency phones, panic alarms, intrusion alarms, fire alarms and law enforcement activity.

The center’s technology includes the TU Siren as well as the TUalert notification system. The center’s Computer Aided Dispatching System also interfaces directly with the Philadelphia Police Department’s 911 Emergency Dispatch Center.

“Our day-to-day can go from answering incoming calls to also sending officers out in response to calls. It’s very vital because there is so much going on in this area, and we need to do as much as we can to keep our students, faculty, staff and community members safe,” Witherspoon said. “It is high stakes because a mistake can be critical, and our main concern is safety.”

Witherspoon has already begun to chart her next course in campus safety. This June, she enrolled in the Police Academy and plans to join Campus Safety Services as an officer following her graduation.

She is following in the footsteps of her father, who followed a similar path at Temple years ago. After starting as a security officer, he too entered the academy, so that he could become a Temple police officer.

“My dad inspired me, and he is my hero. He started at the basic stages of campus safety as a security officer, and he worked his way up. I always aim to be as helpful as he was, and help keep his legacy alive here at Temple,” Witherspoon said. “There are a lot of emotions for me as I begin this next chapter and enter the academy, but I am really excited. It’s been something that I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. It was always my goal to be a police officer, and it’s even better to be a Temple police officer. I plan to be here at Temple forever.”

As a young child, Witherspoon proudly wore a Temple uniform. If all goes as planned, she will continue to proudly wear a Temple uniform well into the future.

Story by Stephen Orbanek

Helping others was a core theme in Lauren Boone’s childhood. Having a nurse as a mom meant that every single day as a kid, Boone saw her mother’s dedication to her patients. Boone was so moved and inspired by her mother that early in her life she determined she would follow in her mother’s footsteps. Boone knew she wanted to help people and make a positive impact on their lives too.

But Boone didn’t know how she was going to serve others until she came to Temple as an undergraduate student. Whether heading to her dorm after softball practice (she played in the National Championship her sophomore year) or going to a class across campus, Boone found that her eyes always drifted back to the Campus Safety officers she’d pass along the way. “At first, it was just ‘oh, cool, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a bike cop,’” Boone said. “But for four years, I always saw them around, like standing guard keeping me safe, and I became really intrigued.”

When Boone landed an internship with the Temple Police Department, she knew her path was set. Right before her 2006 undergraduate graduation, she took the police academy test. From there, everything fell into place. For the next 16 years, Boone threw herself into becoming the best police officer she could be. “I don’t put this uniform on to be authoritative towards anyone. I put it on as a way of saying, ‘I’m here to listen. I know you have issues and I can help you work it out,’” she said.

Now a sergeant, Boone currently supervises the dispatch unit. She makes sure that there are always enough dispatchers to answer incoming calls and send out responding officers when necessary. She’s also responsible for ensuring all her dispatchers stay up to date with their training, their equipment is running properly and that the TUalert system is always functioning.

Boone got into this job to serve the Temple community that had once helped her mature into a young adult. And, ultimately, she wanted to serve as her mother once had. But Boone never expected to get so much back from her work. She was surprised to find a strong “sense of family” within the Campus Safety team. “We’re a small, tight-knit group so we all know each other well,” explained Boone. “Our family members have met each other, our children have grown up together, I’ve met my best friends here and I also met my husband here.”

She believes this sense of family helps the broader campus safety team do their jobs as best as possible, and she hopes this provides a bit of relief for parents. “I want Temple parents to know that we are here to keep their children safe,” said Boone. “I attended school here, but I came from California. Seeing me travel across the country, of course my mom was worried. So I understand parents’ concerns and I want them to know we are here for them too. My team and I are always just a phone call away.”

Story by Ashleigh DeLuca

When you walk through the doors of the Campus Safety building off Montgomery Avenue, you’re likely to be greeted by the wide, warm smile of Officer Gary T. Price. Though his official title is security officer, he says one of his most important responsibilities is actually welcoming Temple community members into the building and helping them feel comfortable.

Price also feels a particular commitment to the undergraduate students on campus because many of them are away from home for the first time in their lives. He knows it can be disorienting for some students, especially those who are far from home, to no longer have a parental figure nearby. As a father of two, this resonates deeply with him. “I want students to know that a dad is still here,” Price said. “I’m happy to stand in as a campus-dad to any student who needs it. I want them to know they are not alone here.”

Over his 15-year career at Temple, he says that befriending and mentoring students in this way has been the highlight of his career. “It’s so gratifying to watch students grow through their time at Temple,” said Price. “As freshmen, they might look a little lost but, by the time they graduate, you see how they’ve matured and it’s incredible.”

Price originally started working as a security officer at a different school in Philadelphia but was looking to be a more active part of a community. When he heard about an opening at Temple, he knew he’d found the community he was looking for. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Price said he grew up hearing about Temple. “So many of my high school classmates went to Temple. It’s a neighborhood school, it’s part of the fabric of the city,” Price said. So when he decided to take the security officer position at Temple, he felt as if he was “joining a family,” and he’s been here ever since.

15 years later, you’ll find Price as engaged as ever on campus. Aside from his duties as a security officer, he also plays an active role in helping the Campus Safety external relations team. From supporting the urban bike team to collecting and distributing toys to local day cares, Price is involved in virtually every facet of campus safety. “I can’t help being a Temple employee,” he said. “I was made for this community.”

Story by Ashleigh DeLuca

When Monica Hankins-Padilla was an undergraduate student at Temple, she thought she was bound for the world of engineering. After all, that was the degree she was pursuing.

But during one of her last semesters she found herself as a student worker for Campus Safety. After a few months on the job, an officer approached her, impressed by her work ethic and level-headed demeanor. “I think you’d be a great police officer,” Hankins-Padilla remembers them saying to her. She was surprised by their comment; it was a career she had never considered. But the officer explained that Hankins-Padilla had a great way with people, which was a critical trait for a police officer. Soon more officers around her started encouraging her to join their ranks and, eventually, they succeeded in convincing her. “I thought, why not tap into this energy everyone says I have,” recalled Hankins-Padilla. Immediately after graduating in 2000, she entered the police academy.

Over the next seven years, Hankins-Padilla rose through the ranks quickly, going from patrol officer to bike officer to corporeal and, finally, police sergeant. Throughout her time, she had been told to stay in tune with the Temple community and its surrounding neighborhoods, so Hankins-Padilla committed herself to this directive. “That was my main focus,” she said. As a result, she became uniquely embedded in the community both on and around campus. When a position opened up in the External Relations Department, it felt like the natural next step for her. She hung up her badge and leaned even further into community support initiatives run by the Campus Safety Department.

Now the director of external relations, Hankins-Padilla continues to create and maintain connections with the Temple community and surrounding neighborhoods. This includes everything from liaising with the city government; tracking licenses and inspections; and running events for and with community members that include politicians, students, property owners and landlords.

Hankins-Padilla is also responsible for running several programs specifically for children in the neighborhoods around Temple like summer coding and gardening projects at St. Malachy Catholic School, frequent toy drives for local day cares, an annual children’s holiday party and middle school visits from officers to read to students.

Their newest project is one that Hankins-Padilla is particularly proud of. She created an urban bike team where officers meet twice a week with a small group of young teens to teach about bike safety, develop life skills and exercise together by riding through the community. Their hope is to keep these teens engaged with the bike team until they graduate from high school to ensure they stay on the right track in their adolescent years. The team is currently training to ride the 30-mile portion of The Ben to the Shore Bike Tour together. A few of the boys helped to design the team uniforms that both the officers and teens will wear.

“Many people wonder why the Police Department is involved in running all of these programs,” Hankins-Padilla said. “They want to know what they have to do with safety.” But to her the connection is crystal clear: “The goal of these programs is to create opportunities for the youth of this city and the more opportunities they have, the safer our communities will be.”

Story by Ashleigh DeLuca

Mark Craney has been part of the Campus Safety team for over 12 years, but the moment that stands out most clearly in his career is the early days of the pandemic. “It blew me away seeing everyone show up here ready to work,” said Craney. “It was inspiring and, in that moment, I couldn’t remember being more proud to be their supervisor and represent them.”

Craney explains that moments like this illustrate his team’s level of dedication to keeping the Temple community safe. “We’re here 24/7, 365 days a year. We’re here on Christmas night. We’re here on New Year’s night. We’re here during Thanksgiving dinner. We don’t leave,” Craney said.

As a sergeant, his job is to supervise security officers and police officers during the night shift between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. His regular activities include scheduling shifts, overseeing shift transitions every eight hours and monitoring the functioning of security equipment. But it’s the interaction with his team that Craney values the most, and he says it’s one of the most critical parts of his job. “It’s my responsibility to keep everyone motivated, to keep their chin up no matter what the situation is, make sure they’re doing their jobs correctly and, most importantly, that they maintain the oath they took when they became an officer,” said Craney.

Craney has been a first responder since he was 18 years old and knew then that he’d found his passion. “That passion has never left me. I love what I do and I love helping people,” Craney said. “We’re here for the students, faculty, staff and also the parents. I want parents to know that their students are in good hands because we have a good group of officers that care immensely about their work.”

Story by Ashleigh DeLuca