Block by Block 'ambassadors' resume off-campus watch by University of Akron
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Zack Brown has been patrolling an off-campus neighborhood south of East Exchange Street by the University of Akron for years, part of an effort to keep crime out of an area a lot of students call home.
Brown supervises other "public safety ambassadors" employed by the Block by Block agency to look out for problem situations. They serve as a sort of neighborhood watch in the area with yellow uniform jackets and direct contact with police via radio.
"It was seven days per week," Brown said, referring to the years before the pandemic struck in March 2020. "Now it's just high-action nights, so to speak ... It's mostly keeping an eye on young 20-somethings, making sure they get home OK."
The 33-year-old West Akron resident said that with three bars in the area, the ambassadors are busier toward the end of the week, providing escorts on request, as well as if students are a bit "too intoxicated."
"Mostly, it's just being a consistent, visible presence," he said.
He said as many as 13 ambassadors have been on duty in prior years, but when the pandemic shut campus down, the company's focus shifted to staffing the university's coronavirus isolation facility at the Quaker Square Residence Hall.
They were not on duty last September, when a fight that broke out at a house party in the neighborhood resulted in the deaths of two, including an 18-year-old student.
Brown said the company is hiring more ambassadors as it gears up to resume neighborhood patrols.
"Right now, we're more of a skeleton crew until more get put in place," he said.
Shootings at parties
Akron police said three shootings in the past year, resulting in the deaths of three people, took place at night while there were house parties going on south of campus. All three remain unsolved.
A $50,000 reward is being offered by members of the University of Akron Board of Trustees, in collaboration with Summit County Crime Stoppers, for information leading to the identification and arrest of those involved in shootings that killed Maya Noelle McFetridge, the 18-year-old student, and Akron resident Alexander Beasley, 25.
Akron police said an unknown person or people outside a house party fired into a crowd, striking three people during a Sept. 19 fight near the intersection of Wheeler and Kling streets on the south side of campus.
McFetridge was pronounced dead at the scene, and Beasley died a few days later. A third victim, age 22, survived.
Another shooting, the city's first of 2022, took place Jan. 15 just outside of the Block by Block organization's area of responsibility, in the 600 block of Kling Street.
Police said it appears there was a large gathering at a home when a 23-year-old man was shot at about 11:30 p.m. as he was leaving the party.
A third shooting, also just outside the Block by Block area, took place one year earlier – on Jan. 15, 2021. A 27-year-old Akron man was found with gunshot wounds at a home in the 600 block of Sherman Street in University Park about 3:30 a.m. Police said there had been a large gathering at the home before the shooting.
More: Man dies after being shot at Akron party; homicide is city's first of 2022
More: The toll of 2021: Tracking this year's murder cases in Akron
Shifting services
Block by Block, a Nashville-based company with roots as an event management and private security services firm, was hired by the university in 2017 under a three-year, extendable contract.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, its off-campus services were suspended, and ambassadors shifted to helping with isolation at the university's Quaker Square Residence Hall.
University of Akron Police Chief Dale Gooding said the isolation facility has been the ambassadors' priority for more than a year.
"Since August of 2020, they have been manning that around the clock, making sure students are safe 24/7," he said. "They take meals to the students' rooms and then provide an assortment of hospitality things, such as toiletries that students may run out of."
He said that dozens of students have been at the facility undergoing isolation.
"It's as few as one, but during the height of COVID, the most we had there at one time was 60 ... that was after Halloween last year."
Under the initial three-year contract with Block by Block, the university pays a monthly fee of just over $25,000 for services. The contract is extendable twice, for one-year increments.
Service hours are adjustable throughout the year, with fewer hours required during cold weather months, for example. The public safety ambassadors were previously on bicycle and walking patrol from 7:30 p.m. to 4 a.m., assigned to specific zones in the service area, seven days per week. As many as six were on duty Thursday through Saturday – the only three days they are currently covering.
Ambassadors working quarantine duty are paid $15 per hour. Those on off-campus patrol are paid $16 per hour.
Under the latest contract extension, annual maximum cost to the university is around $500,000, with about $243,000 earmarked to cover the Quaker Building and $264,000 for off-campus patrol.
Back on watch
Based out of an office at the Exchange Street Residence Hall, the ambassadors went back to work on a limited basis – just two individuals – on Dec. 28.
"We were looking for an extra set of eyes and ears for our neighborhood south of Exchange Street," Gooding said. "They do escorts, they pick up bottles and trash ... they remove graffiti from some of our grounds. If they see suspicious vehicles, suspicious people and that sort of thing, they let our people know so we can have an officer check things out – and that usually happens rather quickly.
"They've been a very good partner. They've been very, very flexible and reactive to our needs," he said.
Rob Blankenship, Block by Block's University of Akron operations manager, calls public safety ambassadors "professional friends."
"We're not like rough and tough security or anything like that. We don't physically get involved a lot. We do a lot of observing and reporting to the police," he said. "Students will call us for escorts to and from the bars, restaurants, even the gas station in the surrounding area on Exchange Street. We escort students to either their cars or their residences, to make sure they are getting home safely."
Ambassadors take about three days of training in how to deal with the public, along with "situational field training" and ongoing training. Training includes response to certain incidents such as fights and gunshots, crowd control techniques and how to deal with the homeless, among other topics.
Blankenship said the agency is gearing up to resume neighborhood patrols at full strength.
"When we get to the point where we're fully staffed, we'll have eight off-campus patrols, along with a team leader and a supervisor," he said. "Pretty much everybody who works there is a resident of Akron."
Eric Marotta can be reached at 330-541-9433, or emarotta@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarottaEric.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 'Ambassadors' resume efforts to cut crime outside University of Akron
