Temple University’s public safety executive and police chief, who has been at the school for more than 36 years, has resigned amid a surge of violence in the campus’ North Philadelphia neighborhood.
Charles Leone will step down effective April 29, according to a source close to the university. It wasn’t immediately clear why Leone is leaving now.
Deputy director Denise Wilhelm, also a member of the department for more than 30 years, is stepping in as interim chief. The university plans to launch a national search and hire a consultant to help, the school said.
The move comes a day after the university announced new measures to try and improve safety, including offering nearby landlords with student tenants up to $2,500 grants to install lighting and cameras on their properties. It also is opening up on-campus residences to any off-campus students who want to move in for the rest of the semester.
The new measures followed two more shootings that occurred on and near the campus last Friday night, increasing angst among parents and students.
In one, two teenage girls in a car were shot during an altercation at the corner of North Broad and Cecil B. Moore, which is on campus. The other shooting was at a house at 1826 W. Diamond St., which is outside the university police patrol zone. Both Temple students and nonstudents attended the party there, but Temple students were not involved in the shooting, Leone had said on Wednesday. At the party, a fight started and a male was kicked out, Leone said. He came back inside shooting, and the security hired for the party fired back, he said. Two people were shot.
The campus has been on edge since November when student Samuel Collington was shot to death in the middle of the day during a carjacking as he returned to his off-campus residence after Thanksgiving. His death followed the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Ahmir Jones, who was not a Temple student, within three blocks of the campus.
The university at that time promised to increase security, including establishing more city police patrols in nearby student residential areas and boosting the 115-officer campus police force by 50%.
The school also said it would upgrade lighting, cameras, and emergency phones and increase the availability of shuttle service and its walking escort program. And in January, the university announced that it had hired former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey to conduct a campus safety audit. That audit is to begin next month, the school said Wednesday.
The university said in addition to 10 new officers hired in January, several others are undergoing background checks and the department hopes to place 12 more in an upcoming police academy class.
Even though the department has unfilled openings and has lost some officers, the university maintains that since Collington’s death, it has more than doubled the number actively patrolling through the use of overtime and supplemental Philadelphia police, whom the university is paying to patrol the area around campus.
