Division of Public Safety

During the pandemic, Penn Police are patrolling the exteriors of off-campus student housing. “We are not waiting for people to register their properties. We've been doing full-blown special checks at every house, every building, every church, etc., in the Penn patrol zone," said Vice President Maureen Rush of Public Safety.

Jenna Ficci, an officer in Penn’s Police Department, has sewn more than 500 homemade masks for health care workers and first responders. “I think the real heroes are the medical workers, the nurses, the doctors,” Ficci said. “They’re the ones on the front line of this whole thing. I’m just doing what I can to help.”

Vice President Maureen Rush of Public Safety, praised an officer in the Penn Police Department who replaced items stolen from a hospital patient with Down syndrome. The officer prefers to remain anonymous.

Vice President Maureen Rush of Public Safety commented on the appointment of Philadelphia’s new police commissioner, Danielle Outlaw. When Rush started her law enforcement career in 1976, she said, she “would never have imagined that we would have had a woman commissioner, never mind a black woman commissioner, in the future.”

Vice President Maureen Rush of Public Safety, one of the first 100 women to join Philadelphia’s police department, spoke about the role of women in law enforcement.

Vice President Maureen Rush of Public Safety spoke about the procedure for handling potential active shooter situations. “We have to investigate it, because we have to get it right,” she said. “We can’t say ‘never mind, that didn’t happen’ or ‘actually, it’s a different location.’”

Vice President Maureen Rush of Public Safety memorialized Tommy Gibbons, a local highway patrol officer turned journalist who died a year ago from brain cancer.