Public Safety Officer Provides A Peek Behind the Scenes
Evening shift lieutenant Joseph Callari beside his white Public Safety pickup truck he uses to patrol the Ammerman campus on March 16. Callari, who graduated from Suffolk, is a third-generation law enforcement officer. (Compass News/Anjali Sinha)
May 14, 2023
Joseph Callari kept a watchful eye on the Ammerman campus in a white Public Safety pickup truck during his evening shift on March 16. While maintaining radio contact with dispatchers, his responsibilities included ensuring safe parking conditions, removing road safety hazards and even offering a friendly hand if someone gets a flat.
‘‘We do a lot of things that people don’t realize we do,” said Callari, 51, of Selden. “We do jumpstarts, we help students, staff members and pretty much anybody — even if somebody is just coming here for a visit.’’
For Callari, a lieutenant who started his public safety journey in 1991 as a supervising public officer at Stony Brook University, coming to Suffolk as a public safety officer in 2012 was a ‘‘full circle’’ experience since he was first a student here.
His father and uncle are both in law enforcement and his grandmother is a psychiatric nurse. The family’s experience in civil service encouraged him to become a public safety officer, he said.
Callari said students might view someone wearing a uniform on campus as ‘not always the nicest’ because they write parking and smoking tickets, but public safety officers aim to ensure that everyone is safe during the process of obtaining a good college education experience.
‘‘If there is a car accident on campus, whether somebody is injured or not, more than likely what ends up happening is, if somebody calls 911 first, that 911 dispatcher actually calls us on our radio and we respond first, so we are usually the first ones here.’’
Callari said officers would want to help the students succeed like any other advisor or counselor to make sure they have a great experience at Suffolk.
‘‘Don’t be afraid to approach us. If you have any questions …. if we don’t know the answer, we can still guide them to the correct area to get that information that they need,’’ he said. ‘‘If they feel they want to talk to somebody, we will guide them to a counselor. If they want to just talk to us and vent about something silly, we are here and we will laugh with you.”
